#but someone really should have stopped them from becoming parabatai

[thomaslightwood]

The Weight of Love

THOMASTAIR WEEK - Day 2 (16th July): Thomas Appreciation Day (hosted by @youngreckless!)

I managed to put myself together to write this, hope you enjoy it 🤧

Words: 1 773

•

When Thomas was a little boy he hated runes.

He hated seeing the anxious faces of his parents when the Silent brothers put the Voyanceon rune on his hand. 

He hated how he had memorized the Nourishment rune and still did it on himself.

He hated how the Iratze runes were put on him over and over again when he had a bad ill episode.

He hated runes.

But he loved musical notes.

In a way they were so similar to the Shadowhunter runes but it didn't cost anyone worries.

The first time he wrote a song - full written song - he didn't want to show it to anyone. It wasn't something that was meant for anyone's eyes.

“Tommy!”

Thomas sighed. He loved his sisters. He loved his parents. But sometimes their love was a weight that was crushing him.

“I'm coming!” he shouted in response. He hid his notebook with stories and songs under his bed, carefully putting a few things over it. Then he ran over to the living room where his sisters were.

“Yes?”

Eugenia was furiously pricking with a needle the tapestry she was making. Or trying to make. Barbara was doing the same as her's but she used the needle much calmer. She looked at Thomas.

“Come here with us,” she smiled. “The dinner is soon.”

Thomas sat on the couch next to Eugenia without saying a word. He knew why his sister had asked him to come. So they can watch after him. Like he was a glass that could be broken by the wind.

“Barbs,” Eugenia said, her face a little red. “Please come help me with this or I swear to Raziel, I'll rip it off.”

Barbara left her tapestry on the table and stood up from the chair she was sitting on, coming to the couch. Thomas moved at the end of it, making space for her.

“Here,” Barbara gently took Eugenia's needle. “You must be careful with the threads…”

While Barbara was explaining to Eugenia, Thomas was staring at the wall without blinking. He wanted to be alone. To write a new song. To train. He didn't want his sisters to babysit him.

Barbara laughed. Her laugh was soft, quiet, warming up something in your chest.

“It's alright, Nia. It's hard.” She stood up again. “I'll bring some of my materials. Wait a second.” Then she left the room, heading towards her bedroom.

“Damn it,” Eugenia said, angrily throwing her work at the table. “Stupid, useless thing.”

She hid her face with her hands and took a few breaths. Thomas, unsure what he could do to comfort his sister, approached her. He slowly hugged her, wrapping his short hands around her. 

She looked at him. Her eyes were wet. But as she blinked a few times the tears disappeared. Eugenia hated people seeing her cry.

She hugged Thomas across his shoulders, almost crushing him in a hug.

After a few seconds he murmured, “You're stopping my oxygen.”

A devilish smile broke on her face.

“This is not my problem. I'm a big sister, I have duties of annoying my little brother.”

Thomas giggled and tried to fight her off. They ended up falling on the couch, laughing. 

Barbara was standing on the door, smiling, while she watched them.

•

The day his parents decided he was ready to go to the Academy, Thomas had conflicted feelings. On one side this meant he wasn’t looked at like a fragile little boy. On the other hand - he had to deal with people. He was worried he wouldn't find friends. Or he would do something stupid and everyone would laugh at him.

The night before his first day at the Academy Thomas couldn’t sleep.

But in the end everything turned out fine. Even better than he expected to. He had a whole group of friends. While there, he missed the solitude he once had. He missed being alone with his own thoughts. But he liked being here. To talk with so many people who weren't his family.

There was one thing he couldn’t escape. That worry on everyone’s faces. He agreed to go to the Academy because he wanted to go away from his overprotective sisters and worrying parents. But sometimes he could see the same worry on his friends’ faces. Maybe it was all in his head. But he couldn’t get rid of the feeling that since they once knew him as a sickly boy, they forever would see him as a sickly boy.

The only one who didn’t have this worry on his face was Alastair Carstairs.

•

Thomas was aware he was becoming ridiculous. But he wasn’t sure he could stop.

He didn’t want to be Alastair's puppy that follows him everywhere. Matthew hated him. James was bullied by him. Alastair was nasty to everyone. But still. 

Thomas couldn’t explain it but there was something in Alastair Carstairs that was… extraordinary.

Sometimes Thomas would spot Alastair looking at him when he thought no one was watching. He was turning away quickly and called him “pipsqueak” or “half pint”. Thomas’ heart was starting to beat very fast when this happened. Like a small song was trapped in his heart and Alastair’s closnesses was making it louder.

Shortly after James, Matthew and Christopher were expelled, he found himself in an old room in the Academy. It was all dust and dirt that made his lungs ache. But he stayed because there was an old piano in it.

It made him smile. He took out his notebook with songs and sat in front of it. He was happy to touch it, to feel its coldness and steadiness. It was refreshing. 

Eventually he decided to examine the rest of the room. It was stuffed with books and old furniture. 

“Pipsqueak?” 

Thomas jumped. He turned and saw Alastair next to the piano. 

“What are you doing here, pixie?”

“Um” Thomas said. “Just looking around.”

Alastair’s gaze slowly moved to the piano. Thomas’ heart stopped. His notebook was there. Alastair was going to see his notebook.

“T-That’s nothing-”

But Alastair was already reaching for the book. He grabbed it from the stand. Thomas started to tremble. He hurried towards the other boy.

“Please, this is just-”

“Wait a second, tea cup,” without much effort he avoided Thomas’ attempts to take his notebook back. He was scanning the pages and then glanced at Thomas. Looked back at the page.

“That's not bad, pipsqueak,” then he gave him back the notebook, turned around and before leaving the room stopped. Turned to him. “You should let me play this sometime,” Alastair said and left the room.

Thomas' heart was beating fast. He was still trembling but for other reasons. His face was hot.

He glanced at the song Alastair had looked at. It was his first song. Did he really like it? Did he really want to play it?

Thomas hugged his notebooks, smiling, because he imagined how Alastair was playing his song.

But this never happened.

•

“You damn Shadowhooligans,” Polly murmured. “Don't have demons to hunt or something?” she sounded annoyed but said this with a smile. 

The four boys, giggling, headed towards their room where James managed to make their exclusive place in the Devil's Tavern.

Thomas was happy. He felt alive. He couldn't remember the last time he felt so reckless, so independent from his family. A time when he could just be.

As he looked at James and Matthew he thought how lucky they are. To find themselves parabatai. They were so different, not just by appearance. James was more quiet natured, more into stories and books. Matthew was loud, bohemian and liked being around people. Yet they somehow made it work.

Sometimes Thomas dreamed of having the same bond with somebody. The only one he could think of was Christopher. He was his brother in every way except blood. But he knew they weren't like this. Christopher would be kind of Shadowhunter Thomas wasn't and vica versa. And he couldn't imagine being with someone like Matthew - he loved him with his whole heart - but Thomas would prefer somebody more like James or himself.

Probably the parabatai-hood wasn't for him after all.

•

“I believe you'll like it there, son,” Gideon said to Thomas. “It helped me a great deal when I was your age.”

Thomas was packing clothes. He soon would turn eighteen and he was going to his travel year. He was scared. And anxious. But so excited at the same time. He looked forward to it for months.

“I hope so,” he said while putting a few shirts in his pack. “I will have a great opportunity to practice my Spanish.” 

Gideon smiled. “Indeed.”

He watched Thomas pack for a few minutes with a warm smile.

“Tom,” he said quietly. Thomas turned to him. Gideon hesitated. “I came to realize that all the attention and care the family took for you were necessary but… that they may have been a burden for you.”

Thomas looked at the floor. Gideon put a hand on his shoulder.

“You never said so, I know. This is what you do. But I have noticed it. When you're annoyed at the overprotectiveness of your sisters, at your mum and I when we put some restrictions on what to do, especially when you were younger.” 

Thomas looked at his father. His face was kind, gentle.

“It's alright. When I was your age I did similar things. I was silent for… some things. You know the story of your grandfather. But going to Spain had a really good influence on me. It helped me grow outside my father's control. I hope it can do the same for you. I strongly believe when you have the chance to be on your own and far away from all the people that overwhelm you with their care, you'll do great.”

Thomas' eyes were wet. He blinked a few times, trying to chase the tears away. 

“I… I don't want to be away from you.”

Gideon hugged him and gently squeezed him. Thomas buried his face in his father's chest.

“I know,” he said. “I also know that this can be scary and equally exciting. Just want to let you know… it's alright to feel this. All of this. Has always been and always will be. When you return you'll be changed. And our family, we'll be here, waiting for you.”

Thomas hugged his father too. It was alright. Everything was going to be alright. 

“I love you,” he whispered, his voice a little muffled.

Gideon kissed the top of his hair. “I love you too.”

#thomas lighwood #tlh #tsc #tsc fanfiction #alastair carstairs #gideon lightwood #eugenia lightwood #barbara lightwood #the merry thieves #thomastair week #tsccreatenet #the last hours #the last hours fanfiction #the shadowhunter chronicles #sav's writing #my post #tsc fanfic #thomastair

[magnus-the-maqnificent]

Let’s analyse - the fight against Abaddon

Brought to you by that one anon on @khaleesiofalicante ‘s blog that’s been driving me crazy. They clearly don’t seem to get the gist of the scene, so here I am... *sigh*

Oh, and I am once again asking y’all to learn and develop critical reading skills asksdgfhh

This is gonna get really long, so I’m gonna put it under a cut. Ciao! (Also, I’ve added alt text to all the images, so don’t worry about that!)

I’m gonna focus mainly on Alec in this analysis, on what this fight meant for his character development, and whether or not it determines his worth as a warrior.

First let’s review - what happened before the fight took place?

Let’s start with the confrontation scene between Alec and Clary. Specifically this part, where Clary’s anger gets out of hand and she lashes out at Alec;

However, if you look back to what Jace actually said...

Jace only said that Alec has never killed a demon, and not that he was ‘too afraid’ to do it. It was Clary, unfortunately, two twisted his words. *sigh* anger brings out the worst of people, huh?

However, at this point, the damage has been done, and Alec believes that Jace thinks he’s a coward or something, because he’s never killed a demon. Which plays right into his insecurities of not being a good enough shadowhunter. And the morning before they go to Dorothea’s house, this happens -

From Jace’s point of view, he only spoke the words out of mild frustration over why Alec, his parabatai, wasn’t supporting him, and clearly meant them as a way to convince Alec to come along. He didn’t meant it maliciously. However, to Alec, who’s probably been stewing over what Clary said to him a while ago, it’s only a confirmation that what she said was true, that Jace thinks he’s too afraid to fight demons/forsaken.

Misunderstandings are a bitch.

After that comes this,

I’m including this scene here for two reasons - one, there’s clearly some tension between Jace and Alec, and two, Alec is clearly shown in an archer’s getup, with a quiver of arrows strapped to his back, and a leather bracer on his arm.

But then, we get to this scene, right before they go to Dorothea’s and after they check the demonic activity levels,

Alec ditches his bow and arrow at the last minute in favour of a feather staff.

Why? Because he knows there’s low demonic activity, and therefore low risks of facing demons and/or forsaken.

Because at this point, he wants to prove to Jace (and Clary) that he’s not afraid of killing demons.

At this point you might be thinking, What? That’s so stupid? If he wants to prove he’s a good warrior, he should do it when there’s high stakes. This just proves he’s a coward and a bad warrior!

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

Alec initially has his bow and arrow, when they’re expecting more trouble while fetching the cup. But when he finds out that there’s little to no risk of coming across demons and forsaken, he switches to the feather staff, because he’s thought this through. In a high stakes battle, switching from high-range-defence (which Alec specialises in) to low-range-offence, could be a serious liability and could result in Jace and Isabelle getting hurt with no one to watch their backs. Alec weighs the risks of him switching fighting styles against the stakes of the fight they’re going into, and only when he knows that the stakes are very low, and that Jace and Isabelle won’t be getting hurt that he decides to take up low-range-offence. Like he says to Isabelle, he knows what he’s doing.

Even when his feelings are hurt and he wants badly to prove that he isn’t afraid, he still puts the safety of his siblings first, which is... maybe the opposite of selfish. The irony.

So, yeah. Once Alec knows that his siblings won’t get hurt in his quest for bravery, the mission, for him, becomes all about him trying to prove to Jace (and Clary) that he can be a brave, badass warrior who kills stuff, too. Note how his behaviour changes abruptly in this scene. (“Let’s kick some demon butt!” the second hand embarrassment omg)

And also in this scene:

Alec is generally very goal oriented. Like we see in future books, for missions like these, Alec always focuses on the final goal (retrieving items or rescuing people, etc.) and the demons/forsaken/cult members/whatever he’s fighting on the way becomes secondary to him. Yet here we see that he seems to be equally prioritising retrieving the cup and fighting forsaken, while even Jace is indifferent to the forsaken. Because like I said, at this point he only wants to prove that he’s not afraid.

Now onto the actual fight scene....

All three of them - Jace, Isabelle and Alec, were expecting low demonic activity and low risks. No one expected a fucking greater demon to pop out of nowhere. To them, it’s like... in terms of a video game, playing until level 15 and then jumping to level 95 or something. All three of them are clueless.

And at this point, if you’re holding only Alec at fault for being clueless, when all three siblings are scared shitless (yes, including Jace. It’s canon that he uses humour in a fight when he thinks he’s going to die.)... you’re the one holding gay characters to a much higher standard than the straight ones. Stop doing that, dumbass.

Now, at this point, Alec is in a fix. He’s set his mind on proving to Jace that he can be a brave warrior too, but now he has to protect his siblings too. Except he’s already ditched his bow and arrows, which means there’s no going back. He has no choice but to go on low-range-offence.

So, he does both.

He gets in between Jace and the demon, effectively preventing Jace from getting hit, and strikes at the demon at the same time, injuring it. Basically, Alec tried to hit two birds with one stone, with a weapon he wasn’t as familiar with as he was with the bow. From his point of view, it was foolish - like we see in the graphic novel.

Except... that was a pretty brave thing. He charged in front of a greater demon even though he was clearly afraid of it, for Jace. His fear wasn’t greater than his instinct to protect, even if the need to prove himself was still there in his mind. In the end, Alec was brave. (But at this point, Alec probably thinks that fearlessness and bravery are the same thing, and it may not be until the third book that he realises the difference).

You know Magnus says ‘I think you were I injured in an act of bravery’ or something like that in the graphic novel? Bitch was right. (Damn, now I wonder just how much Alec needed to hear that).

And now, enter Simon

Yes, what Simon did was amazing - but can it really compare to Alec’s archery skills? Now, what Simon did was more endowed in strategy than skill. He knew about the skylight, knew that sunlight is harmful to demons, and utilised that knowledge to his advantage. But the skylight, in an earlier page is described as a single wide pane of glass. Now, you tell me, what’s easier - shattering a pane of glass, or killing a level 95 boss with weapons?

And... why do people feel the need to point out that Simon killed the demon while Alec specifically couldn’t? Why don’t I see people comparing Isabelle and Jace to Simon? Why the gay shadowhunter vs the straight mundane? Why not straight shadowhunter vs straight mundane? Why are you holding Alec to such high standards and say nothing about how Jace, the greatest warrior of his time, couldn’t kill a demon while a mundane could? Double standards, that’s why.

And now for our grand finale-

At this point, Alec doesn’t know the full extent of what really happened. It’s unclear how much he’s processed, but it’s clear he remembers until the point he attacked the demon. He was unconscious for a while, so he may not have witnessed Simon’s entrance. It’s pretty hard to say. But this scene here just goes to prove my earlier point once again - he just wanted to prove to Jace (and Clary) that he was a brave warrior, that he could kill demons too. And now, in his mind, he did kill a demon. He’s proven himself, even if he’s gravely injured now.

(Someone give him a damn hug omg)((Also bless Clary for coming around and being an Angel))

And the rest... well, you know.

Actually, you know what? Thank you, you mean ass anon. You helped me understand my favourite character a little better. I’m only realising now just how much Alec’s arc in the first three books revolves around the idea of fearlessness and bravery. Maybe that’ll be an analysis for another day.

Goodbye for now! And pay attention in English class, folks! Especially the reading comprehension stuff!

#this took me TWO HOURS #AKSJSKSKSKKS #IM BEGGING Y’ALL TO RB AJSJSKSKKSKS #tsc #alec lightwood #tmi #cob #laks analyses #city of bones #jace herondale #jace wayland #isabelle lightwood #clary fairchild #simon lewis

[khaleesiofalicante]

OK I GOT 5 HOURS OF SLEEP LAST NIGHT WHICH IS PRETTY OK IG (I did stay up to read the fic-) BOTH MY TESTS WENT LIKE SHIT, I HAD AN ANXIETY ATTACK IN PROGRAMMING CLASS BECAUSE BY TEACHER IS A LITTLE SHIT WHO KEPT ON YELLING AT ME WHEN I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND SOMETHING AND I SPENT LUNCH ALONE BUT AT LEAST NOW IM ALONE WITH MY LAPTOP SO YAYAYAYYA

first of all, this chapter right here is my comfort chapter from now on. i said what i said. I will be rereading it again and again just because i can. it was PERFECTION

here's me going crazy at 2 am yesterday.

MAGNUS' CHAPTER

LET'S GO LET'S GO LET'S GO

AHHHHHHH IT'S THEIR ANNIVERSARY

SCREAM

oh

alec shaved his beard because it made him look older

RAFAEL WAS SO UPSET AFTER THE MEXICO ATTACK BECAUSE OF ANJALI RIGHT??

magnus and alec are the oblivious parents istg

“Are you decent?” Max yelled. “I don’t want to be traumatized again.”

“Hey! We agreed not to talk about that!” Alec yelled back.

Im not even surprised at this point

“Happy anniversary, bapa!” Rafael kissed him on the cheek and handed him the flowers.

“Where are my flowers?” Alec asked.

Rafael plucked a rose from the bouquet and threw it at Alec. “Here you go.”

“Thanks, son,” Alec mumbled.

IM WHEEZING

DAVID BAKES

“David made it,” Max said shyly. "

Oh,” Alec replied and then shrugged. “Well, the icing could be a little sweeter I think.”

Ever since Max started dating, Alec had become incredibly protective. Alec liked David of course – it was impossible to find someone who didn’t. But that didn’t mean Alec approved.

And it didn’t help that the blond boy was absolutely terrified of Alec.

ALEC STOP TEASING HIM

THE BOY IS ALREADY SCARED

“I don’t know,” Alec analysed the card. “David used too much glitter.”

“Since when do you have a problem with excessive glitter?” Max demanded.

ALEC

“I didn’t use him!” Max huffed. “He was thoroughly compensated for his efforts!”

“Compensated how?” Alec asked.

“Uh,” Max said. “With donuts.”

when i saw donuts i immediately thought of rose and luisa from jtv

iykyk

but should i continue the show? i got tired of jane continuously embarrasing herself

“You expect us to follow rules?” Alec asked in surprise. “In our own home? On our anniversary?”

The warlock boy grinned wickedly before leaning close to Alec.

“You better do it, or I will tell everyone about your secret,” Max whispered.

Alec blinked at that.

the secret...

I DONT LIKE HOW MANY THINGS POPPED INTO MY HEAD

is highschool musical that bad? i havent watched it. should i?

what if i cried

i just wanna hug alec??? but i cant say it'll be ok because it wont

“Is that why you are not attending?” Magnus grinned at his friend. “Or is it because you are terrified of Georgia?”

“That child is the reincarnation of Christopher Lightwood!” Ragnor complained. “I heard she made explosives out of demon ichor! Who makes explosions out of demon ichor?”

RAGNOR IS PROBABLY GETTING FLASHBACKS

THESE STUPID FUCKING BITCHES

how tf do you think we have survived huh??

medicine that's how

vaccines, anti biotics and what not

stop being close-minded and fucking do it

ok i know the risk is great

BUT OTHERWISE THEY ALL DIE

it was different for warlocks. The Shadow World was their universe. The nephilim kept it safe. At one point in their lives, they had learned to coexist with them, out of necessity and out of obligation.

And now here they were – working together in the name of friendship and love.

how things change...

what

say what

the causes are what

ok let's not jump to conclusions

im fucking crying wtf

alec doesnt deserve this shit

all he's done is make the world a better place

hes worked so hard on this

RAZIEL CAN GO FUCK HIMSELF

what am i supposed to say to my parents if one of them comes to check on me and im sitting here crying at 2 am

He didn’t want to believe in a reality that would punish Alec. Alec who only wanted to do what is good and right.

Alec was who was losing his hope and strength every passing day. Alec who was struggling. Alec who was turning to desperate measures to cope with all the stress.

please alec

no please

THE ANGELS ARE BITCHES

Because if Magnus found out Raziel was the one causing all this pain for Alec, he would march up to heaven and set the bastard on fire himself.

AND I'LL GO WITH HIM

KNEW THE SPY WAS LIVVY

AWW RAGNOR LIKES SELENA THATS SO SWEET

blue and gold

STOP IT IM CRYING AGAIN

The shadowhunter was a good influence on him. Magnus hoped Alec would see it sooner rather than later.

HUH

HUHU

HUH

omg

GIGI GETTING A SIBLING

“Max isn’t allowed to do a lot of things,” Magnus chuckled. “But he does them anyway.”

thats my boi

GASP

]THE NECKLACE

rafael is growing into the consul voice

they grow up so fast

nope nope he's still the little 5 year old

voice cracking what do you mean he's 20

im glad hes happy with mila. or is he...?

Magnus had deduced as much. Alec lived in his beautifully oblivious world. But Magnus noticed.

He noticed the hickeys. He noticed the late-night visits. He noticed the tense phone calls.

well thank god there's at least one non-oblivious person (alec i love you so much but you are very very oblivious)

“What’s stopping you then?” Magnus asked.

"2554 miles,” Rafael chuckled sadly.

me with all my online friends

probably more miles

Magnus tried to do the math but promptly gave up.

me

But Alec did lie though. Magnus pushed the thought away.

NOT NOW

LET ME LIVE IN PEACEFUL OBLIVION

HUSH

“Except melt it?” Rafael chuckled.

“Yes,” Magnus chuckled back. “As you can see, the bar is extremely low in the Lightwood family.”

AHHIUCCDSKUHDCV

i have no clue what the words describing the outfit are

time to google

OK PRETTY

Fifteen years. Fifteen years of loving and Alec still made his heart stutter.

dont do this to me right now I WILL CRY

“What the hell?” Max exclaimed. “Why are you all dressed up?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, it’s my anniversary,” Alec chuckled.

Max-

Fifteen years. Fifteen years and Magnus still took Alec’s breath away.

HJCSDHJBJDHSGCDYGJVVC JHVDFYMJ

it's not funny MY EYES ARE WATERING

“Bapak is a good looking one in the family,” Rafael pointed out. “You are the chaotic one and I am the smart one.”

“What am I then?” Alec asked dryly. “A sack of potatoes?”

“You’re the sexy one,” Magnus grinned. “A sexy sack of potatoes.”

yes.

Alec grinned back and leaned forward. Magnus put his hands around Alec’s neck and kissed him. He kissed Alec with all the love he had inside his heart.

Just like the first time. Just like the hundredth time. Just like the thousandth time.

Because with Alec, every kiss mattered. Every single one.

muffled sob

“Stop making out, oh my god!” Max groaned.

Magnus sensed a pillow coming their way but Rafael caught it before it hit them.

“Max, stop!” Rafael scolded. “You will wrinkle dad’s suit and ruin bapak’s hair! I spent hours ironing both!”

why is max me when i see people display affection in front of me

ALSO RAFAEL HKUIUIDCSKIHUDFVHJDFVHU

“They are here,” Rafael said. “You two better look exactly the way you did when I left with Max or I will raise hell.”

IM SCREAMING

Selena was wearing a blue crop top with the words “MIND YOUR OWN UTEREUS” written in gold.

i need that top

DAVID'S SHIRT IS THE COLOR OF MAX'S MAGIC

AHH ISABELLE DOESNT KNOW SHE'S PREGNANT YET

The argument of “who gave the best gift” had started when Jace and Izzy had gotten drunk on vodka. It didn’t help that Alec had gotten drunk as well. All three Lightwood siblings had then proceeded to have an argument about who had the best spouse. The whole night had been drunken chaos. Magnus, Clary and Simon had let them have it since the Lightwood siblings had a tendency to carry the world on their shoulders even when nobody asked them. They rarely ever let loose ever since their worlds had plunged into sickness and demon attacks. Especially Alec. So, Magnus had let his husband be that 18-year-old boy again. The boy who got drunk and fought with his siblings and sang songs about Magnus’ pretty eyes.

OH MY GOD THE CHAOS

Georgia considered that. “I’m not allowed to melt it, right?”

“No,” they all replied in chorus.

LET GIGI MELT IT

SELENA IM SO PROUD OF YOU

“Dad,” Max said. “Can you keep a picture of me wearing this necklace in your office?”

“Why?” Rafael asked.

“I think it will piss off the boomers,” Max giggled.

“Nice!” Lexi grinned. “A downworlder wearing a shadowhunter heirloom? They will lose their heads. Uncle Alec, you must do it.”

“I will do you one better. I will hang a tapestry,” Alec chuckled.

YASSS I CANT WAIT FOR THE SHADOWHUNTERS TO BE PISSED

AWW THEY DIDNT KNOW THE NECKLACE USED TO BELONG TO MAGNUS

he actually gave to camille first-

Why couldn’t this boy just cause chaos during his travel year like the rest of them? Why did he actually study and do his research as recommended?

why would you NOT study and research during your travel year????

oh shit

well well well

david bby stfu

i love you but pls stop speaking for all our sakes

“Holy shit,” Max said. “It is expensive then!”

“Don’t pawn the ruby!” Rafael warned.

MAX NO-

OH THE STONE COMES FROM EDOM

oh no

pls dont fight

oh so i was wrong about magus confronting him from that snippet

all you need to know is im sobbing right now and grammarly is the only thing making this coherent

dont mind me just

NO I FORGOT ABOUT MAX AND DAVID

GET BACK IN THE ROOM YOU IDIOTS

don't do this to me at 3 am

OK THE DILF PART

thank you for adding light into my life again

(me while editing this: today really isn't my day huh? i just slipped in rainwater outside my balcony because I heard rain and ran there. now my knee and back hurt and I think I sprained (?) my toe-

ANYWAY

wait im gonna go check out the rain and then continue editing this

ok i got bored of the rain)

that made me laugh through my tears

“Objectively good looking?” Jace snorted. “Excuse you, but my parabatai is smoking hot! He is a freaking prize, okay? If we had a magazine for hot shadowhunters, you would be on the cover page. Every single issue.”

“Okay, that’s enough!” Alec interrupted. “Magnus, are you happy? Now all my friends have told me I am pretty.”

“I said smoking hot,” Jace corrected.

“We are not being biased,” Clary pointed out. “It is the general consensus, Alec.”

“It’s true,” Lexi said. “So many people have asked me for your number, Uncle Alec. And I would have given it to them if I wasn’t worried about being turned into a marshmallow.”

LEXI DUHDUGHUDFCUHKVDFUIKFDU

“Dad, I don’t know why you are so worried,” Max said in a bored tone. “You’re a told DILF.”

David choked on his champagne and Jace patted him on the back.

“What the hell is a DILF?” Alec demanded.

“Oh, I know this one!” Jace said excitedly. “It means Dashing and Irresistible Looking Father. Max is right, you are a total DILF.”

“Mr. Herondale-” David raised a hand.

“I heard one of the shadowhunters in their travel year calling me a DILF too,” Jace said proudly.

THAT IS NOT WHAT DILF MEANS OH MY GOD

“It’s not a rumour,” Selena spoke up and passed her phone. “There is a group chat at Scholomance just to thirst after you.”

add me to it

ALL THE COMMENTS I CANT BREATHE

“Alec Lightwood can run me over with a Maserati and I would thank him.”

“Give me that,” Izzy grabbed the phone and started giggling. “Petition for Consul Alec Lightwood-Bane to stab me with his mortal sword.”

“Isabelle!” Alec hissed, cheeks flaming. “Stop it!”

“I want one!” Jace grabbed the phone now. “By the Angel!”

“Read it!” the kids yelled in chorus.

“I would gladly let Consul Lightwood-Bane inspect my mortal instruments,” Jace chuckled and threw the phone at David.

David shook his head vehemently and threw it at Max.

“My body is just a hole for Alec Lightwood,” Max read out loud and started laughing so hard that he fell off his chair.

Lexi grabbed the phone and giggled. “I want the Consul to strip off my runes among other things.”

She passed the phone to Gigi, who looked at the phone and look at Alec.

“Uncle Alec,” the girl said. “This person wants you to crush them with your massive archer arms.”

“Give me that,” Rafael grabbed it now. “Aw, this one is a classic, dad. Alec Lightwood turned me gay.”

He threw the phone at Simon, who stared the screen and looked up. “Uh, I don’t think I can read this one out loud in front of the kids.

“Is this the one about the basement?” Selena chuckled and Simon nodded.

WHAT'S THE BASEMENT ONe

TELL ME

AWW GIGI AND LEXI PUTTING MAKEUP ON DAVID AND MAX RECORDING IT

google translator time

oooo Rafael's gonna talk with Mila

Magnus you're such a good father

seriously

“Sometimes things are just sad. So, you need to let yourself be sad.”

YES

SAY IT LOUDER

THEY ARE UNDER THE BED

AHHH MAX AND DAVID

DAVID CALLED HIM MY ANGEL IN FRENCH

Alec and Magnus hiding under the bed and spying on them is just-

Jace had tried to give Max the shovel talk and had gotten a little too emotional.

of course, he did smh I love him so much

“David doesn’t need a shovel talk,” Alec smiled. “He knows what would happen to him if he hurts my son.”

David gulped. “You will throw me into the silent city?”

“I will ask me husband to portal you to hell,” Alec said – Consul Voice. “We have relatives there.”

the beloved relatives yes

“Goodnight,” Jace gave them a salute. “Have fun inspecting Magnus’ mortal instruments.”

JACE

OH SO THE QUESTION WAS ABOUT SMOKING

damn it

oh my god guys he said he'll stop smoking

just lemme have this moment

my boy's lungs will be intact

HIS LUNGS WILL BE OK

“I can’t wait to see all the messages on the chat after that,” Magnus giggled.

Alec looked up. “I’m more than a tall glass of water, Magnus!”

SCREAMING

In his dream, he saw them again. But they weren’t smiling this time.

what

wait

THE PROPHETIC DREAMS

nope nope nope

Nah I don't know what you're talking about

haha

damn, I think I really hurt my back...

OK BUT THE IMMORTALITY ANGST???? WAS SO SO GOOD???? I know it makes me cry but is it bad that I'm always so excited for angst written by you because of HOW GOOD it is????

"When I die I will love you from my grave" I NEED THIS ON MY FOREHEAD OH MY GOD I LOVE THESE TWO SO SO MUCH

alright I need to get something for my back and my knee (I'm home alone so this will be fun)

OK, I THINK THE NEXT CHP WILL BE ANJALI'S POV I JUST FEEL IT!!! I miss my girl so much I hope she's doing ok. Jaime too...

I'm rereading all of these chapters after chapter 10 because why not. Bye!!

OKAY I AM GLAD YOU LIKED IT BUT I AM ALSO DEEPLY WORRIED ABOUT YOUR HEALTH.

I hope your knee and back feels better soon!

also fuck that teacher yelling something doesn't make people understand it any better ugh dumb piece of shit anyway screw that person.

I hope you get some good rest and recovery from this rollercoaster of a day.

Take care!

#lbaf

[merry-thieves]

Possible meanings of Chain of Iron snippets

Yes, this is going to be a long post. 

I didn’t put all teasers here only those where I could actually come up with something.

Alastair looked amused. “Never before have I heard such a concise statement of the ludicrous philosophy with which you and your school friends go through the world.”

So, Alastair is definitely speaking to one of the Merry Thieves

probably James, since Al and Matthew aren’t on the best terms and conversations between Thomas and Al would go in another direction (either fighting or with way more feelings)

it seems like James and Alastair are on quite good terms here if Alastair isn’t snappish and shows his true (happy) emotions

Anna was fortress-surrounded by her friends: tall, handsome Thomas; Christopher, who shared his sister’s stern delicacy of feature, peacock Matthew, who always looked as if he’d just rolled out of an unmade bed piled with silks and velvet. And Eugenia Lightwood, who hadn’t bothered to take off her canary-yellow gloves or hat, as if she were ready to run out the door any moment.

They all eyed Ariadne suspiciously as she approached Anna. Anna didn’t seem to see her at all; she was leaning back with one booted foot braced on the wall behind her. She was all lean black and white lines, her close-fitting jacket following the outline of her slim curves, her head thrown back as she laughed. Her ruby pendant glimmered in the hollow of her throat.

Keep your head up, Ariadne, she told herself. You can do this.

“Hello, Anna,” Ariadne said.

First of all, Eugenia is in this group which is interesting regarding the main characters in Chain of Iron

Is Eugenia part of the main group? Has she an important role to play? (we are supposed to find out the reason why she is disgraced)

We have Ariadne’s pov here, so she might play a big role too in Choi, at least we will have more of her and Anna’s relationship

Also, she calls Matthew “peacock” which is so accurate and funny!

Alastair’s gaze flicked to Matthew. “Why,” he said, “are you not even wearing a hat?”

“And cover up this hair?” Matthew indicated his golden locks with a flourish. “Would you blot out the sun?”

Okay, Matthew and Alastair aren’t brawling which is a good sign

Also, where are they? There has to be a good reason if both of them are attending and standing next to each other

I’m guessing they’re outside since they’re supposed to wear hats 

The brave princess Lucretia raced through the marble halls of the palace. "I must find Cordelia," she gasped. "I must save her."

"I believe the Prince holds her even now, captive in his throne room!" Sir Jerrod exclaimed. "But Princess Lucretia, even though you are the most beautiful and wise lady that I have ever met, surely you cannot fight your way through a hundred of his stoutest palace guard!" The knight’s green eyes flashed. His straight black hair was disarranged, and his white shirt was entirely undone.

"But I must!" Lucretia cried.

So, the main thing I want to point out here is that Lucie is crushing so hard on Jesse!

and does she picture him with an open shirt or am I reading too much into this?

James spoke at last, and there was real kindness in his voice. “You must give people time, Alastair,” he said. “We are none of us perfect, and no one expects perfection. But when you have hurt people you must allow them their anger. Otherwise it will only become another thing you have tried to take away.”

Alastair seemed to hesitate. “James,” he said. “Does he think —“

Soooo, James and Alastair are friendly now? (please, please, please)

And who does Alastair have to give time? Matthew or more likely Thomas?

Also, James is one eloquent babe

“I know that you’ve been doing something — something you’re keeping secret. I’m not angry,” Cordelia hastened to add. “I  just wish you’d tell me what it is.”

Lucie tried to cover her surprise.

it was about time that those two speak about all their secrets! They want to become Parabatai for Raziel’s sake!

but I have the sneaking suspicion that Lucie is going to deflect the question or is going to make something up to avoid telling the truth

(please let me be wrong)

“Alastair! Cordelia!” A familiar voice bellowed up from downstairs.

Sona went white and laid a hand against the wall to steady herself. “Elias?”

I’m not sure about you guys but going white and bracing oneself against a wall doesn’t seem like someone is happy

So, I guess Sona isn’t really happy that Elias is back

is there another reason besides the drinking why she isn’t

and is Elias mad at his children? I mean he is bellowing

also why is Elias mad at all? All his charges were dropped and he is a free man once more

Cordelia shivered a little, though it was not cold in the room. “There is something weighing on you, Matthew,” she said gently. “A secret. Will you tell me what it is?”

She saw his hand go to his breast pocket, where he often kept his flask. Then he lowered it stiffly to his side and took a deep breath. “You do not know what you are asking.”

“Yes, I do,” she said. “I am asking for the truth. Your truth. You know mine, and I do not even know what makes you so unhappy.”

Cordelia told Matthew everything about her father and maybe about her feelings for James

if we’re lucky Matthew tells Cordelia about the poisoning and someone can finally help him (I think CC said that Matthew would tell Cordelia everything in Chain of Iron, hopefully that’s true)

also, Matthew doesn’t want to drink after Cordelia told him the story about her father

Matthew also found out why Alastair had been so mean in school and that Matthew can't really partially blame him for what happened with Charlotte

Jesse glanced out the window. They were passing through Piccadilly Circus, nearly deserted at such a late hour. The statue of Eros in the center was lightly dusted with snow; a lone tramp slept upon the steps below it. “Don’t have too much hope, Lucie. Sometimes hope is dangerous.”

“Have you said that to Grace?”

Jesse shook his head. “She won’t listen.”

is there a possibility that Lucie won’t try to raise Jesse from the dead and instead tries to stop Grace from doing so? (the parallels between this and qoaad are uncanny)

I don’t think that there is anything that will stop grace from trying to perform necromancy other than force

“I’ve been trying to hate you,” Thomas said quietly, “for what you did to Matthew. You richly deserve to be hated for what you have done.”

Alastair’s dark eyes glittered. “It wasn’t just his mother I slandered. It was your father, too. You know it. So you don’t have to—to act all high-minded about this. Stop pretending you are only upset on behalf of Matthew. Hate me on your own behalf, Thomas.”

he is calling him Thomas!!! Ahhhh! (so they’re probably alone)

Thomas doesn’t really hate Alastair at this point but also hasn’t fully forgiven him

at least he hasn’t thrown Alastair into the themes 

maybe Thomas is trying to suppress the fact that Alastair also wronged Thomas’s own family and it’s easier for him to direct his attention to Matthew’s family?

His golden eyes were fixed on her, fierce as a hawk’s gaze. She said, "It doesn’t matter what I said. I wanted them to leave you alone —"

"I don’t believe you," he said. She could feel the slight tremors running through his body — tremors of stress, that meant he was holding himself very still. Holding himself back. "You don’t say things you don’t mean, Daisy —"

Okay now, what did she say? I’m guessing something quite flattering or that she loved him maybe?

also, who didn’t want to leave James alone? Some bigoted Enclave members?

is James trying to fight against the bracelet’s spell? Or is he breaking Cordelia’s heart yet again?

James closed his eyes. Against the back of his eyelids, he could see the city take shape—the minarets flung darkly against a blue sky, the silver river. Cordelia’s voice, low and familiar, rose above the clamor of his nightmare. He followed it out of the darkness, like Theseus following the length of thread out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth. And it was not the first time. Her voice had lifted him out of fever, once, had been his light in shadows. . . . A sharp pain spiked through his temples. He blinked his eyes open: he was firmly back in the present, his friends all looking at him worriedly. Cordelia had already moved away from him, leaving behind the lingering scent of jasmine. He could still feel where her fingers had rested against his shoulder.

JORDELIA! (Sorry; I just had to get that out)

What city is this? One in a demon dimension?

And does James have some kind of visions now? Interesting...

I love the connection between James and Cordelia

Apparently, the gracelet is trying to suppress James's feelings and memories of Cordelia...but please tell me he notices here that he is in love with her?

Also, Cordelia is trying to stay away from James :(

Hands caught his wrists; he was hauled up roughly, an arm around his back. he smelled brandy and cologne.

“Matthew,” he said, in a dry voice. “James needs water,” Christopher said. “Do we have any water?” “Never touch the stuff,” said Matthew, settling James onto the long sofa. He sat down next to him, staring so intently into James’s face that, despite everything, James had to stifle a laugh. “I’m fine, Matthew,” said James. “Also, I don’t know what you expect to discover by looking into my eyeball.”

Okay WHAT IS UP with James in the latest snippets?!? I NEED answers!

Is James follwing in his father's footsteps? Regarding drugs you know...

Also, Matthew has a tendency to stare into Jame's face (not that I blame him)

Christopher!

Okay, I'm devestated that James knows it's Matthew because he smells of alcohol. I'm NOT okay!

Also, what kind of stuff is this?

“You should have told us,” said Thomas. “We would have helped you move your things. I’m exceptionally good at carrying large objects.” “And think of all those hairbrushes you would have had to relocate,” Lucie said. “Haven’t you got six or seven?” Matthew glowered at her affectionately. “I try to be at least as stylish as our local ghosts.”

I think it's clear that Matthew just moved and didn't tell any of his friends of his plans...Why Matthew, why?

Also, Thomas and Lucie are just so wholesome how they try to brighten the situation with their comments

Sooooo, is Thomas also good at carrying people *cough*Alastair*cough*, just asking...?

How many Hairbrushes does one need? Seriously, what kind of purpose do seven hairbrushes serve?

Don't worry Matthew, only Magnus can beat your stylishness

That’s all for now! Should I add anything else in your opinion?

#the last hours #tlh #the shadowhunter chronicles #tsc #Chain of Iron #chain of gold #chain of gold spoilers #choi #coi #chog #cog2 #chog spoilers #teaser #snippets #alastair carstairs #thomas x alastair #thomas lightwood #jesse blackthorn #grace blackthorn #james herondale #lucie herondale #Matthew Fairchild #Cordelia Carstairs #sona carstairs #elias carstairs #christopher lightwood #merry thieves #eugenia lightwood #anna lightwood #ariadne bridgestock

[rosereview]

Chain of Iron Review

Like my Chain of Gold review (which you can find on my post list or here) this is going to be a hot mess of emotions and feelings with very many spoilers. If you’re wondering if you should read this book (a review without spoilers) my thoughts are go fricking read everything by Cassandra Clare and fall in love with me. Yes, I highly recommend everything that woman has touched with a pen. But besides that, let's get into this review.

Characters

James Herondale- first let's start with one of the main characters who was a big part of this novel. To be honest I don’t have much to say about him personally without getting into his relationships with others and the plot points in the book (which I will talk about later), but I guess I will talk about my love for him. I was unsure at first (before Chain of Gold) how I was going to feel about James and if he would be a typical Herondale boy and be very similar to his father or his descendant, Jace. I was worried that he would be too similar to Will and Jace that he would not stand out, but like in Chain of Gold, I was very happy with his individual character traits and personality. While he is like Will and Jace, James is also very different and his own person. He’s a typical heart throb Herondale, while still having this very reserved and responsible side to him that I love so much. His only flaw is something he can’t control, so yeah… strong character.

Cordelia Carstairs- Like last book, I LOVE Cordelia, although this book was harder to read because of what she went through. Multiple times I wanted to just give her a hug and let her cry on my shoulder. I wish she hadn’t had to go through so much trauma in this book, but I know she’ll become a better character because of it. The whole ordeal with being Lilith’s paladin hurt very much, her unrequited (not really) love for James was heartbreaking to see continuously played on (I JUST WANTED THAT DAMN GRACELET OFF), and the parts about her father also hurt. I need to read Chain of Thorns now, just to make sure that Cordelia is alright in the end.

Matthew Fairchild- talking about Matthew makes me sad because I absolutely love him as a character and I just need him to get better. I’m so happy that he opened up to Cordelia in this book, but I need him to start loving himself again. The pain I feel when reading about him trembling and drinking himself to honestly too much (especially since he’s just a fictional character). And that’s really all I want for Matthew, is for him to be okay one day.

Grace Blackthorn- this was very interesting in Chain of Iron because we got a lot of flashback scenes from Grace’s point of view and that made me not hate her as much anymore. I still am very annoyed at her, but I like that I can finally see more of her side and sympathize with her. I’m very interested to see more of her character development, especially individually without all the stuff with James obscuring my image of her.

Lucie Herondale- someone else that I found I loved much more in this book was Lucie. In the last book, from what I can remember, Lucie was a little interesting at parts (I kind of want to say annoying, although that’s a little too harsh of a word), but I loved her in this book. She had much more character development (I thought) and her personality came out more in a less hectic way. Her inner thoughts started to make more sense to me, and I loved learning more about her as not someone who is just James’s sister, or Cordelia’s future parabatai, but as her own person.

Jesse Blackthorn- Another character I loved to see more of although we mostly just saw him through Lucie’s eyes, and I also already loved him even before. He became a much more understanding and developed character in this book and I can’t wait to see more of him now that he’s alive!

Alastair Carstairs- I totally fell in love with him in this book too! Holy shit, all I wanted to do was hug him and tell him that it would all be alright. Because he is an older sibling I think I can relate to him a lot more now, especially with all this baggage that he was keeping and trying to protect Cordelia from. I found the scenes with just him in them (like when he’s thinking about the future while looking out the window in his house after his father dies and thinking about his new baby sibling that will be born) absolutely amazing and captivating. Obviously I used to hate him because of the short stories that he was in the Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy and other extra short stories, but now I need more of him and I’m internally hurting for him.

Thomas Lightwood- Another character I am hurting for and I just need him to be okay. I loved and hated the fact that he felt so hurt for James because of the killer and he wanted to unburden James by catching the killer. I was just so moved but also so angry that he was putting himself in danger that it was a very emotional time reading (like me clutching the book and shouting at Thomas to stop and go back). But I will always love Thomas and can’t wait to see more of him. 

Christopher Lightwood- Last but certainly not least, is Christopher, who I am obsessed with. That one POV moment that we had from him was one of my favourites and now I need to hear from him more. I love all of his quirks and his inner thoughts are the most adorable thing but also makes me sad because he has no one but Henry to share them with and who fully understands and appreciates him for who he is. Also I still really find it wild that he’s the son of Cecily and Gabriel, who aren’t science-y people at all and who are both much more sarcastic characters, while Christopher is just so sweet and perfect. (Not saying Cecily and Gabriel aren’t perfect, but still never would have imagined them to have a kid like Christopher, but at the same time I find it so perfect that they did). Also I just love Christopher so much! I know I said that already, but I just can’t get over it. I need more of his inner thoughts and just more of HIM. 

Relationships

Now we can finally talk about the characters in terms of their relationships with other characters and since I was just talking about Christopher I need to start with…

Christopher and Grace! — I loved that little moment they shared when they were in Henry’s laboratory and were bonding of the pithos. It was the best moment in the whole book and I keep thinking about it in my head. I know of the family tree from the Clockwork Princess inside cover, it says that Christopher and Grace will get married and have the Lightwood offspring, but I just hadn’t really realized that significance until now. They are so cute together and even though I have expressly said I hated Grace in the past, the way she understood Christopher and the way they could talk together, warmed my heart so much and was the most redeeming part of Grace’s character for me. I just need more moments of Grace and Christopher. 

Now to the next most pressing relationship…

The James, Cordelia, Matthew love triangle!

Let's start with Cordelia and James— I love them together. Even with all the annoying shit with James and the bracelet, their relationship shone in this book and I was so happy about it. They are so perfect for each other and all of their moments together I was bursting with joy. Their chemistry, but also their solid foundation for their relationship is so well written that it’s impossible for me not to see them as together. This is their story and I’m in love with it.

Now Cordelia and Matthew— I also love them, but probably not as much. The thing is, I’m just obsessed with Matthew, so while I love the relationship just because I want Matthew to find happiness, I think James and Cordelia are better together. The problem is with Matthew is that he needs to work on himself first before he could ever hope to fully love someone else and share a life with someone else. I’m very happy for the moment though that Matthew has Cordelia at his side and that he even shared his biggest secret with her because I do think that Cordelia has the capacity to help Matthew (maybe even on this trip to Paris) but I also don’t want it to be too much for Cordelia since she already had to deal with similar issues with her dad and I don’t want it to bring up hard memories for her. But either way I just need the next book to see what happens after that VERY emotional cliffhanger. Cassie did me dirty with that one. 

James and Grace— Well I hate the fricking bracelet (also side note, I absolutely love that the fandom nicknamed the bracelet, gracelet. I love that so much). But I also see why Grace felt like she had to put it on and why she couldn’t take it off, but it still makes me so mad. Especially the way she still felt she could manipulate James in the end because she had nowhere else to go. I hate that part of her, the part that her mother taught her that it’s okay to manipulate men. But I was also so happy how James went off on her at the end, it was very satisfying until Cordelia ran off, but still very happy that James got to yell at Grace like that. 

Lucie and Jesse— another couple I am now fully invested and in love with. This book made me like Lucie more BECAUSE of her development with Jesse. I liked Jesse before, but this book, where we got to see lots of their development as a couple and be completely honest with each other, sealed the deal for me. I can’t wait to read more about Jesse and Lucie in the future because I am so happy for them and so in love with their love, it’s actually kind of ridiculous. 

Alastair and Thomas— again, I just fell completely in love with them in this book. The scenes with them locked up together were some of my favorite scenes, but I was beyond sad when Alastair still broke it off with Thomas in the end. I needed one couple to find some sort of happy at the end of this book, but all of them ended badly! I was very mad, but I can’t wait for the next book to see them get together (because they have to get together). 

Anna and Ariadne— I just love Anna so much and I want her to be happy, but in this book I also felt for Ariadne too. At first I didn’t like her because of the fact that she broke Anna’s heart, but now seeing her try so hard to make up with her… it just makes my heart break for the both of them. Also the only parts in this book that had these two in it, were scenes about their relationship, which is why I didn’t have anything to say about their individual personalities, but I would like to add that Anna is definitely one of my favourite Lightwoods and one of the best minor characters in the Shadowhunter universe. 

Lucie and Cordelia— for these two I wish that we had more scenes of them as friends, but I think one of the most powerful parts of this book that made it so sad, was the fact that Cordelia and Lucie didn’t talk. The way the two girls were by themselves with their problems definitely was a huge factor of why everything went bad, and I’m very certain that if Lucie and Cordelia had talked more, things would have ended differently. So I see and understand why they weren’t able to be the parabatai pals that I wanted them to be, but I still am waiting desperately for more scenes of the two of them just being friends. Another reason I cannot wait for the last book of the series. 

Grace and Jesse— because of all the flashback scenes of Grace, I was able to appreciate her relationship with her brother more. The bond that they have between brother and sister is so strong and beautiful that it’s another thing that redeems Grace as a character, and makes me sympathize a lot more with her. 

The Merry Thieves— just want to say that I love them so much. I will always love them and I just need more scenes of the group of them plus Lucie, Anna, and Cordelia. That is all.

Plot

For plot details in this book, I just have a couple things to talk about, the first being: WHERE THE FUCK WAS THE REAL MAGNUS! Honestly, I know where he was, but I felt so betrayed when Lilith revealed herself to be a pretend Magnus. Every Shadowhunter book has Magnus helping to save the day, and my theory is that the reason everything went so shitty was because Magnus wasn’t there. Jem and Magnus are always needed for these Shadowhunter children who just keep getting caught up into shitty situations. He better help more in the next book (which I already know he will, since at the end of Chain of Iron he was there with Will). On that note, I also thought it was clever of Cassie to have Will and Tessa gone for the majority of the book, because I feel like if they had been there, shit wouldn’t have gotten that bad, both concerning Belial and the kids’ love lives. It wouldn’t have been believable if they had been there but all the events happened in the same way, because I’m pretty sure Will or Tessa would have given more advice to James and Lucie. 

Secondly, that was some crazy business with Belial and Lilith, and also I’m so excited that Lilith is back. I think she’s such an interesting villain being Adam’s first wife and all. But also I don’t like who she’s a manipulative bitch, but I think that’s part of her charm. 

Next, the gracelet. I hate it. Period. Glad it’s off. 

Next plot point— all the stuff with Malcolm! Oh my goodness that was so interesting to see how Malcolm’s villain origin story started. I can’t actually believe that it was Grace that told Malcolm straight up about Annabel (I can actually believe it, I just think it ironic that she’s also a Blackthorn, and really only Blackthorns seem to have messed up Malcolm’s life). I’m very interested to see more of what he does with Jesse and Lucie now that Jesse is alive and Malcolm knows more about Lucie’s powers. 

Lastly, I wanted to touch on the extra short story from the first editions of Chain of Iron, with Magnus and Jem. I think that it was an important scene concerning the future Eldest Curses novel, The Black Volume of the Dead, and maybe even the Wicked Powers series. It just made me even more excited for the future Shadowhunters books and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for us moving forward!

And that’s all I have to talk about. Thank you if you read to the end and were able to sift through my thoughts. This is totally unedited, so sorry for stupid mistakes and such. 

Until next time!

~Rose Reviews

#cassandraclare #shadowhunters #chain of iron spoilers #chain of iron #the last hours #james herondale #cordelia carstairs #matthew fairchild #lucie herondale #jesse blackthorn #grace blackthorn #alastair carstairs #thomas lightwood #christopher lightwood #anna lightwood #ariadne bridgestock #chain of iron review

[ohnotoomanyfandoms]

I like the way you analyze, so I'd like to ask you a more general question: what do you think will happen to Matthew's character? (in general, not only in relation to Cordelia, it seems that people can't think of anything else, and the THOUGHT OF THE RELATIONSHIP WITH JAMES RUINED FOR A GIRL makes me terribly angry and saddened) I don’t see it well, I find credible the theory about the marks stripped, and I fear we may not even see him in the continuation of the saga. Excuse my bad English

Thank you for the kind words and the question! Your English isn’t bad at all <3 Here are my thoughts on Matthew’s future. 

I think he will hit rock bottom in Chain of Iron, because of a multitude of reasons. The last straw might be that something terrible happens because Matthew is drunk: someone might be injured (which is heavily foreshadowed by Lucie in chapter 12 of Chain of Gold), they might lose an important object, forfeit an important mission, or worse. I hope James will finally see fit to intervene and ask Matthew to straight-up tell him what’s wrong. He tried in ChOG, but he wasn’t persistent enough, and Math definitely wasn’t ready to talk just yet. 

But I think once Mathew confesses his “original sin” to Cordelia (I am 100% sure he will tell her first), his heart will be lighter and he will be able to confess it to other people too: his parabatai, hopefully even his parents. I hope Charlotte reassures him they will always love him instead of being mad for something he inadvertently caused years ago. Matthew always thought his act was unforgivable. If his mother and father show him forgiveness, love and devotion instead, it might be enough for him to finally start moving on. I hope this - and not some lady’s kisses, whoever she might be - sets Matthew on a path of self-love and amelioration. 

Things will not be okay for a while yet, and Matthew will always have to live with what he did. He might always hate a part of himself, but hopefully he stops with the self-destructive behavior. He can keep up the bohemien attitude that we all love and keep having fun with Anna and Magnus and the Hell Ruelle. He just needs to stop putting himself at risk and he needs to take himself seriously. 

Ship-wise, you all know what I think, so I’m not going to really break it down here. I don’t think he and Cordelia will happen romantically. I joke on Twitter that he will have a fling with Filomena, but that’s mostly a jape because many of us Italian Shadowhunters are totally self-inserting. I hope that in the future maybe Matthew and Lucie could have a chance once they’re more mature. Apart from all this, he will have at least one more (brief?) love interest before the end of TLH. We know that Kellington is the one who broke his heart a while back. We may see that passion rekindle, or Math could meet someone gentler, which I sincerely hope is the case. 

However, I do think Matthew’s future is not with the Nephilim. Time and time again he has commented on how he hates violence and their people’s ways. He only really stayed so far because he grew up in a loving (and prominent) family and because of his friends, because he clings to them. In COI, he will begin distancing himself: this starts with him going to live on his own (thus physically walking away from his family) without telling his friends until he’s all moved out (as we’ve seen in a snippet), getting a car... he is looking for some concrete, tangible sense of independence. But this also means he will spend more time alone, and loneliness does not do him good.  

Matthew has said on multiple occasions he would prefer to be a mundane, to live of art rather than war. I do think he will either choose self-exile in the end, or even - more drastically - be stripped of his marks (even though I sincerely hope this doesn’t come to pass, and he would need to commit a BIG crime for the Consul’s son to receive this treatment). Maybe that’s the only way for him to truly find peace: to walk away from all the violence and destruction and never look back. I am aware that right now it seems absurd that he would ever willingly part from James, but we don’t know what’s in store for them. We do also have to take into account the hypothesis that Matthew may die young. 

On the other hand, I’ve heard there are brilliant theories of how Matthew might become a Downworlder too - also fitting since he’s so close with so many of them, and unusually so considering the times. Some say he might become a werewolf, some say a vampire, which would be so ironic considering his quote about wanting Dorian Gray’s immortality and staying young and beautiful forever. If that is the case, however fitting it may sound, we have to realize that since we haven’t met Matthew in books that are set in the future, he may have perished anyway. Or maybe, if that ends up being the case, Cassie just came up with this ending recently so there are no mentions or easter eggs of it anywhere else. 

This is all speculation. This is what I think/hope will happen. I’m in no way saying it should or it will, it’s my personal opinion drawn after attentive analysis. Whatever happens, I hope my baby Matthew gets the love and peace he deserves. I hope he lives a long life of his choosing. 

At the end of the day, whatever happens, keep this in mind: his arc and his development need to be about himself before they can be about anything or anyone else. External events may shake him, but Matthew’s biggest enemy at this point in the trilogy is himself. He needs to win an internal struggle before he can truly be a participant in the game. It won’t happen in the span of three chapters. It will be a gradual process, but I have faith. He can overcome his inner demons so he can join his friends in fighting the literal ones out there in the world.

“We do not get to choose when in our lives we feel pain. It comes when it comes, and we try to remember, even though we cannot imagine a day when it will release its hold on us, that all pain fades. All misery passes. Humanity is drawn to light, not darkness.”

#Matthew Fairchild #the last hours #chain of iron #chain of thorns #coi spoilers #james herondale #cordelia carstairs #lucie herondale #FILOMENA DI ANGELO #magnus bane #anna lightwood #Claude kellington #charlotte fairchild #henry branwell #tsc #the shadowhunter chronicles #shadowhunters #tlh #Matthew x lucie #mucie #fairondale #matthewmena #filomatthew #cassandra clare #cot spoilers #Matthew x Claude #chain of iron theories #tlh theories

[lord-of-nightmares-and-anguish]

just a jimon thing my brain came up with in a rare moment of lucidity

Jace was known for his recklessness. Despite pretending to be oblivious to it, Jace was well aware that he tended to run into things head first. Which is kinda weird, because when Alec says We’re Lightwoods. We break noses and accept the consequences its inspirational. But when Jace actually does it, its reckless, and suicidal, and immature.

And....well when Jace allows himself a rare moment of clarity he can acknowledge that he’s a little reckless, and maybe a tad bit immature. But suicidal? Maybe, but not in the way people think. Jace doesn’t take the most dangerous missions because he has a death wish.....mostly. Death isn’t on his mind when he runs in front of Simon to take the hit from the demon. Really. Whenever he gets into situations like this, sprawled on the ground, and not even in a sexy way his brain distantly adds, the last thing on his mind is Death.

You either live long enough to see yourself become a villain, or die a hero. Over and over and over in his head, like a movie that never stops. In spite of his parabatai’s best efforts, he can’t seem to shake Valentine’s hold on him. He was his father in all the ways that matter but shouldn’t and he can’t let himself become like Valentine. He can’t. So yes, he acts like his flesh and angel blood are an adamis shield against everything bad in the world. He doesn’t want to die. Not really. Not yet. Not when he has the cutest Daylighter to play video games with on the weekend.

But as much as he loves Simon. And wow, isn’t that a revelation to have sitting in a pool of blood. As much as he loves Simon, he loves being remebered as good more. His intentions have been muddled, between the mixed messages from the Clave and his family, Jace knows that people don’t know how to feel about him. He feels it in the way they keep him at arms length. Far away enough that if he turns, they won’t be at fault for associating with him. But just close enough that if he ever ends up proving his worth they won’t be condemned with ostracizing him. It’s exhausting.

Jace doesn’t want them to still be guessing when he’s in his grave.

He groans as he feels cold hands pick him up and carry him to what must be a portal. Jace feels slightly unsettled because he doesn’t hear Simon breathing. Jace chooses to ignore it, because if he’s going to spend his last moments in his crush’s arms he’ll be damned if he spends it worrying about why Simon isn’t breathing. He figures that Simon’s allowed to break from his normal behavior. It’s not like he carries Jace around bridal style on a daily basis either. 

~break~

Jace wakes up in the infirmary. He looks at the stars, and sees them dim before his eyes as the realization that he’s alive hits him, and yeah maybe Jace needs to reexamine his not suicidal thing. Jace thinks that he’s alone, which is why when he moves to get out of bed to make the long and probably painful trek to his room he’s surprised when someone stops him.

“Simon?”

The Daylighter was at his bedside looking down at him with the most torn expression he’s ever seen. His eyes glinted with determination while his face had red residue from his dried tears.

“Jace.”

Jace looks at Simon for a long moment as silence stretches between them. Simon seemed to be steeling himself to say something important but Jace was still stuck on how Simon had said his name. When was the last time someone had said his name as a sentence? Like everything he was could be encompassed by his name, and that was enough. He was enough. Jace’s last remaining braincell reminded him that everyone used his name as a sentence; and the only reason why it was different when Simon said it was because he was in love and possibly still riding the highs of pain medication. Jace heard heard Simon’s soft intake of breath, and prepared himself for whatever he was about to say.

“Jace, I-....I don’t know how to say this but I’m just gonna say it and maybe, hopefully this makes sense. You scared me today, Jace. Well, you kinda scare me everyday but today was different. Seeing you lying on the ground half-dead.....all to protect me. It was terrifying. A-and not because it was a lot of blood, but because the thought losing you makes me feels like im back in the grave again, wondering whether I’ll ever get out. And I know it shouldn’t affect me like this, since I’ve known you for months now, and I should be used to it, but fuck Jace I don’t want to be! You’ve been a soldier all your life. Fighting is in your blood so I know, that you know how to save someone without putting your life on the line. And I can’t watch someone I care about constantly put themselves in danger like this.”

Jace felt his heart break at those words and tried to mentally prepare himself for another person to walk out of his life. Obviously Simon’s monologue wasn’t enough torture because Jace could hear him gearing up to say something else.

“Which is exactly why, you need to tell me why you keep on acting like you’re an invincible punching bag, so that I can fix it. And I can ensure that I still have someone to beat in Mario Kart.”

Jace snorted, “Good to know that you have your priorities straight and my best interests at heart.”

“Always sweetheart, always.” And if Jace’s heart fluttered at the pet name, that’s nobody damn business but his own.

“Anyways, Jace chop chop! I mean you don’t have to tell me. Right now that is. But it’s either me or Alec and I know he’s your parabatai and all but he can be really dense when it comes to listening and helping people with things like this.”

Jace grumbled but he couldn’t deny that Simon was right. He loved Alec, but he has a hard time with sensitive subjects. Jace still shudders about the conversation Alec tried to have with him about Celine’s mental health history. Jace decided to just suck it up and tell Simon. It’s not like he has anything to lose, and he doubts anything he’ll share with Simon will ruin his perception of him. He knows to keep the darkest parts of himself hidden. He’s just sharing his thought process, right? He’s not revealing anything, its just simply a matter of logic. No one wants to be remebered in a bad light.

So he tells Simon that. He tells him how he feels cold, like he’s always on the outskirts of living in Valentine’s shadow, and there’s not many ways to redeem yourself in the Shadow world. Not when you messed up as much as Jace did. 

He doesn’t expect Simon to hug him. He tells Jace that what people think of him doesn’t matter.

“And Jace, I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m immortal. Trust me when I say that I’ll make sure that everyone remebers you for the great person you are.”

Jace can’t deal with the overload of comfort from Simon, but decides that he’ll try to enjoy it anyways because it’s not everyday he gets held by the love of his life.

Simon gently lays them down, mindful of the bandages around Jace’s midsection and tucks them both under the covers. Jace snuggles into Simon’s side, still sort of convinced that this is a drug addled dream because why else would Simon be so nice? When has a conversation about his behavior gone this well? Jace refuses to believe that this is real, because if it is then Jace will get used to this. Used to having someone be there for him. And eventually he will get hurt again, and Jace is just beginning to find his footing after everything that’s happened. So for now he closes his eyes and settles against Simon’s back. He tries to tell himself that this doesn’t mean anything, and that Simon cares about him as a friend and nothing more. Jace will take what he can get, and besides, friend cuddles aren’t all that bad.

#jimon #shadowhunters #shadwohunters fanfic #hurt/comfort #K I N D A #they get together #just not here #Jace is ok tho #like he's pining but he's fine #his pining wasn't really the focus lol #IT WAS HIM #ALWAYS YEETING HIMSELF INTO DANGEROUS SITUATIONS >:(((((( #asdklfasjlkf #anyways #also this was not proofread #alsdfjasdflasdf #whoops

[lovemalecforever]

Chapter 12

Family isn't always blood

Alec looked at his Parabatai then to his sister then to him again and sighed heavily before speaking. "Because there is something I want to talk about which needs all of your presence."

"Excuse me!?" Jace exclaimed, "Alec, I can feel your nervousness, what is going on? You're making me scared buddy, we almost lost yo-"

"Jace, calm down. I'll tell you when everyone will be here, and it's nothing bad, okay?"

Even after the reassurance, Jace was still not convinced. He could feel how scared and nervous Alec was through their bond. There were so many probabilities running through his mind, minding that Magnus wasn't there with him when that man never leaves his brother alone.

"Jace, stop. I can literally feel you getting stressed up, I told you, Jace, it's nothing, just... wait for a while."

Jace sighed and nodded. He had met his Parabatai, his brother after a long time, and making him upset or angry was the last thing he wanted. "Sorry Alec, but really, you told Izzy that you're coming but not me? Seriously? Am I not important to you anymore?" he dramatically put his hand over his chest. "You have hurt me, dude."

Alec rolled his eyes. "Stop being overdramatic, Jace. Besides, the look on your face told me that it was worth it."

"Boyzzz!" Izzy interrupted, shaking her head at her brothers for their silliness. "So, big brother, whom do you want to meet first, Clary or Simon?" Out of everyone, Izzy knew really well that Alec considers them family now, remembering the fact that he admitted it when she and Simon visited him.

"It's been long I've seen nugget in training mode. I would like to see her training and meanwhile, tell Simon to come here, I want to talk to you both privately before talking to everyone else."

"What the hell!? Alec, First, stop giving my girlfriend these stupid nicknames, and second what are you guys are up to?"

"Jace, stop." Izzy spoke firmly, "Don't bombard our brother with questions, he just arrived. And, besides, I want to see how Clary's doing so can we move now?"

"Fine, let's go." Jace sighed, and they left for the training room.

While heading towards the training room, Alec didn't miss the changes that had been made at the Institute, especially the weapons room. He knew he made the right decision to make his sister the Head of the Institute when he accepted the post of Inquisitor at Alicante, and she's doing a brilliant job. He couldn't help but feel proud of his sister.

It's been around an hour since Clary started her training, her hair was tied up in a ponytail, she was wearing a perfectly fitted navy blue sports bra with red stripes on it, the back having cross straps with blue-grey yoga pants and red and blue colored sports shoes. Her hands were wrapped in boxing bandages, blowing punches and kicks to the punching bag, which had now started to tear.

"Slow down Parabatai, looks like you're having a bad day, or did you not get it last night, huh?" Izzy teased as she walked towards her soon-to-be Parabatai, a smirk playing on her face, and Jace's face flushed.

"Izzy, Hey!" Clary greeted then held the towel that Izzy offered her. "And to answer your question, both. Bad day because Jace was being an idiot last night, and this morning too." She said, making Izzy burst into laughter.

"Really Clary, discussing our sex life with my sister!? Not appreciated!" Jace said as he walked in.

"She's my best friend, Herondale. I can discuss whatever I want." Clary shrugged and snatched the water bottle that he offered her.

"Oops! Looks like someone screwed up badly." Izzy said while suppressing her laugh, earning a glare from Jace.

Clary almost choked on the water she was drinking and dropped the bottle on the floor in the process when her eyes fell on the third person present in that room, standing by the door frame.

"ALEC!"

"Hello, Carrot!" Alec walked in and laughed when she literally jumped on him. "Get down, carrot, you're drenched in sweat."

"Really! Carrot, Carrot!? Seriously, Alec, I told you to stop giving her names, don't you-"

"I find it cute," Clary said, interrupting her boyfriend and making him dumbfounded. "Alec, when did you come? And where's Magnus?" She asked when her excitement died down and was back on her feet.

"Just now, and Magnus didn't come, I had some work."

"Okay, now I'm jealous, what had Simon done, big brother? Jace? Why do you both treat him like that?" Izzy pouted.

"I like him, but that vampire gets under my skin sometimes. No offense, Izzy." Jace said flatly.

"Izzy, Simon had done nothing, you know I like him, I just don't feel like being like that around him. There's nothing else." Alec reassured, making her sigh.

Izzy's phone buzzed, breaking their chain of conversation. She picked it up to check the message. "It's Si, he'll be here in some time. Your room or my office?" She asked.

"In my room," Alec answered while Jace and Clary kept glancing between the siblings. "I'll tell you both later."

Clary nodded. "I'm going to get a shower, see you later, Alec." With that, she picked up her stuff and left the hall.

"Wait, Clary! Excuse me!" Jace said hurried after his girlfriend leaving the other two laughing at their situation.

"It's good to have her back, you know," Izzy said when they both left the room. "Jace is a different person now, and happier too."

"I know. I can feel it. I'm happy for him, he deserves this. Looking back at how broken he was 3 years ago, I'm really happy that Clary got her memories back. They didn't deserve what happened 5 years ago."

"What's wrong!?" She asked when she noticed an unknown expression clouding her brother's face.

"Izzy, promise me you won't tell Jace what I'm about to say, else I won't hear the end of it."

Izzy raised her brow but eventually nodded.

"You know how much I used to hate Clary when she first came into our lives, she's still annoying, but looking at her now, at them, they are meant for each other, they complete each other. And I'm really happy that they found each other, all over again." He said, having a bright smile on his face.

"You're right, big brother. Jace will never stop teasing you if he'll hear what you just said. And, I agree, they are meant for each other."

Clary came back to their lives almost two and a half years ago. It took her almost a year and a half after meeting Jace at her painting exhibition to regain her memories of the shadow world. When she remembered Jace at the alley of the building where her exhibition was held, Jace frequented their meetings in the hope that she'd remember everything but hid it from everyone else. That was until Simon found out and confronted him, in the process bumping into her becoming the second person she remembered.

Clary always had an empty space in her heart, a void, which kept telling her that something was missing. That was until she met Jace, and she knew that she knew him from somewhere. There were bits and pieces in her mind of a club, bike riding, or some similar events, but they were never complete.

When both boys told everyone about Clary, it was Magnus who advised them to take things slow and not rush her memories. She met everyone, remembered them one by one, Luke being the third one, then Jocelyn, followed by the incomplete memory of her death, which resulted in regaining her memories at a great pace.

What broke the floodgates of her memories was when Jace and Clary were returning from their date, and they were attacked by a shapeshifting demon, which Clary killed with complete ease, shocked at first, but the sudden appearance and disappearance of her runes made her remember that she's a Shadowhunter.

The most beautiful thing which happened between all this was Clary fell in love with Jace all over again, oblivious about their past and Jace's feelings, making him the happiest person in the universe.

When she remembered everything, and stepped into the institute once again, and got all her runes back, she was visited by her mother's soul once again telling her that the Angels had forgiven her, she still has her extra share of powers, but she needs to be careful this time and not repeat the mistakes she made in the past. From that time on she became a completely new person. Better than before, more fierce, stronger, but still stubborn, annoying, and irritating at times.

The most epic thing to happen was Alec and Clary's relationship. From hating each other to frenemies to friends to a weird brother-sister relationship, they came a long way. The bitter comments Alec used to make about her were now more of teasing and mocking in a good way. They had started understanding each other, making everyone around them shocked with their bonding.

***************************

Simon was already pacing in Alec's room when Izzy and Alec entered, making Alec sigh out of frustration. "Stop digging holes in my carpet, Lewis," Alec commented.

"Really!?"

"Boys!" Izzy shook her head. "I can't with you people!" She mumbled, then turned towards her brother. "So, what did you find Alec?"

"Everything!" He answered and explained to them the complete process of becoming immortal. When he was done both of their faces were filled with shock and astonishment.

"So, you have to drink Fray's blood and ask her to talk to Angel Ithuriel on your behalf, that's... interesting. Do you think she'll agree?" Simon asked curiously.

"That we'll see. Are you both okay with this?" Alec asked hesitantly.

Simon and Izzy exchanged a look. "Of course we are, big brother. I'm really happy for you." She hugged her brother tightly. Alec looked at Simon who nodded and smiled at him, he smiled back and mouthed thank you to him.

They broke their hug and Alec sighed with relief. "I'm glad to have your support, but, Izzy, I need advice, I'm confused."

"What is it?"

"Should I wait for everyone to arrive and talk to them tonight altogether, or I'll talk to everyone privately? I don't know how everyone's gonna react, especially Jace and Clary."

Izzy didn't know what to say to that. She looked at Simon than at her brother, trying to form words when Simon broke the silence.

"Um... I don't know what you think, Iz, but I think you should talk to everyone privately, talking to everyone at the same time would mean too many emotions in one place when you don't know how will everyone react which can become uneasy for you. But it's completely up to you." He said carefully.

"I think you're right Simon, thank you. It might take time, but I'll get a fair amount of time with everyone. And I think I'm going to make Jace and Clary wait for the last." He said with a chuckle.

"Now, Izzy, till the time mom and Luke arrive, why don't you and Clary show me what I've asked for!?" He asked with a wide smile.

Simon had a confused expression from his question, making Alec chuckle with the realization that neither of the women had told anyone about the gifts he had asked them to help him make for Magnus.

"Come on then, big brother. It's in Clary's room." She wrapped her arm around her brother's, dropped the silencing rune, and walked towards Jace and Clary's shared room. When they were near their room they heard loud arguments coming from their room making them exchange looks.

"Can we come in Fray? Or are you both going to continue with whatever you were arguing about?" Simon asked while suppressing his laugh, earning a flying pillow from Clary, which he dodged successfully, making Alec and Izzy burst with laughter, and Jace completely embarrassed.

"Are you people done?" Alec asked.

Clary cleared her throat and steadied herself. "Yeah, come in."

"Are you still working on it, or is it completed? Alec wants to see it." Izzy said the excitement was clearly visible in her voice.

"Oh, are you sure Alec? It's not completed yet."

"Completed or not, I want to see both of your's!"

"Okay, it's in my art room."

"Art room?" "What the hell is going on!?" Alec and Jace said at the same time.

Jace was carefully listening to their conversation, making a frown appear on his forehead. He looked at Simon who was mirroring his confused expressions, but no one else, making his nerves rise.

Alec sighed. "Izzy and Clary, may I know why you both kept it hidden from them?" He waved towards Simon and Jace.

"We thought it would be nice to surprise them too, we want to see their expressions when it's done," Izzy said.

Jace and Simon exchanged a look, Jace was about to say something when Alec raised his hand to shut him up. He shook his head in disbelief. "I didn't get my answer, Art room?"

"Oh, my old room, now that I share the room with Jace, I converted that to my personal Art room. Are you really sure, Alec?"

"Yes, and anyways I want it completed before I leave for Alicante."

"Are you sure, big brother? Will you be able to hide from Magnus for that long?" Izzy raised her brow at him.

"Alec, if this makes you relieved, I got permission from Angels to use the portal rune as a permanent rune for me, and anyways I and Izzy are gonna portal to the lakeside to complete all the decorations you've asked for. You can meet us there and take the gifts from us." Clary said.

Alec looked at Clary in disbelief. "You got permission? That's something. Okay then, take your time, but it should be completed by Wednesday."

"We're almost done, big brother. Don't worry!"

*************

They all walked towards Clary's Art room, Alec was way too excited to see what they've done. Clary opens the door, which was filled with the scent of fresh colors, different shapes of brushes were spread in the whole room and a bunch of them were kept in a pen stand with several watercolor bottles and charcoal pencils on a wooden table in the corner of the room. There were different shapes of canvases filled in the whole room.

Clary went forward and removed a red-colored cloth that was covering a medium-sized canvas, only to reveal 3 frame-sized paintings pinned on the canvas, the 4th one was ongoing and one was empty. Alec's jaw fell on the ground seeing them.

"You... you're painting them!?"

"You like it?" Clary asked nervously, biting her nails, and looked at Izzy.

Alec went forward and traced his fingers over the painting of their wedding, both in tuxedos, holding hands, a look of pure happiness on their faces. "Put this in the center, and frame them properly. Magnus is going to love it. And I do too. Thank you, redhead!"

Clary sighed with relief and nodded with a warm smile.

"What the he-"

"Wow, these are beautiful Fray, so that's not the only surprise you're planning for Magnus? It's so lovely!"

"Yes, there's more Simon. I told you and Izzy alre-"

"What is going on!? And why am I the only one who doesn't know anything!?" Jace yelled.

Alec sighed for the billionth time that day. "Jace, are you really not getting it, or are you seriously not remembering!?"

Every eyes were on Jace now. "Remember wha... oh shit!" He gulped when he realized the paintings were from Alec's wedding to all of their following anniversaries. And it's his brother's anniversary next week.

"Sorry, Alec. I forgot about your anniversary. So, that's why Magnus is not here, you're planning a surprise, huh?" He said teasingly knowing that his brother is bad with surprises.

Alec rolled his eyes and smacked Jace on the back of his head, earning a whiney 'Ow' from him while others burst into laughter. "So, Izzy!?"

"It's in the weapons room, come on!"

*********************

They were all in the weapons room, Izzy had vacated the room for some time, and they were the only five present there. She went towards the right side rack, opened the second last drawer and took out a black-colored box, and walked towards the center table where everyone was standing.

"Big brother, it's yet to be completed. The whole engraving is remaining, you sure!?"

"Engraving?" Others said in unison.

"Yes, Izzy! Just show me whatever is done!"

Izzy opened the box to reveal a set of 3 diamond rings, sitting on fake fingers, two on the base and one in the middle of the finger, each connected with silver chains having tiny emeralds covering the whole chain. It was a really beautiful ring. There was a bundle of diamond cuts sitting on the base of the box.

Everyone's jaws were dropped on the floor. The ring was shining brightly in the dullness of the room.

"Why extra diamonds?" Clary asked curiously.

"These are going to be fixed on the engraving. Alec, thoughts?" She asked, her voice filled with nervousness and excitement.

"Wow! I... I'm speechless. You did a great job, Izzy. Magnus is definitely going to fall in love with it."

"I already am," Clary confessed. Her eyes were shining with the lights the diamond ring was emitting.

"I didn't know my girlfriend was this talented!" Simon said. He and Jace were completely dumbfounded.

They all got out of their trance with a loud squeal Izzy made, way too excited and proud of her work. They all exchanged a look and shook their heads at her.

Before Izzy could say, her phone buzzed and her expressions went from excited to soft.

"What?" Alec asked.

"Mom and Luke are here, you're ready, Alec?"

Alec sighed. "Let's get this over with!"

#asaab #angst with a happy ending #angst #fanfic authors #alec lightwood #fantasy #fanfiction #fanfic #lightwood bane family #malec forever #malec fic #happily married #magnus bane #malec

[beclynn-herondale]

The Lost Pieces

[This is different from what I usually do but I want to write about TMI Gang as kids, I feel like there isn't enough of them as kids, and this is kinda triggering in ways but Jace had a triggering childhood, the warnings are in the tags and hopefully this makes sense, it's also very angsty.]

Some days Jonathan wondered why he could never make his father happy, he tried and he tried, but most of the time his father just seemed disappointed.

Jonathan didn't know what he was doing wrong but he got a punishment every time, he supposed eventually he'd figure it out, after all if he can't even figure this out then he figured his father had the right to punish him, if he was messing up then his father has the right.He just couldn't figure out what it was, how do you stop being so weak and gentle?, He never knew what his father meant exactly when he said that, he just acted how he acted and thought that was just him, but that person isn't who his father wants him to be so he will have to change and become what his father wants, his father does know what's best after all, so he'll figure out how to get rid of this Jonathan and be what his father wants.

Yeh, tomorrow he'll start acting more like his father wants, he has to, this Jonathan is a disappointment and weak, he can't be this Jonathan so he'll kill this Jonathan and bury him as deep as he can.

——————

The day his father killed his falcon, Jonathan realized he couldn't love, love would only hurt him, and love scared him now.

He was sorry he couldn't protect his falcon, he cried for him and said goodbye, and Jonathan said he would never cry again.

——————

Jonathan saw the ghosts again and he wondered if his father knew about them, they were always nice to him, one of them was a pretty girl with brown hair and blue eyes, she said she wasn't from around here and she has no connection here but she came to see him, she talked about her stories a lot, he wondered if she knew how good they were, she only came a few times though and it had been forever since he last saw her, he wondered if she wasn't coming back, there was a woman with blonde hair, he never saw her face but he always felt drawn to her in a way, like he knew her somehow, she would never show her face but she would hug him and say 'you will be alright and one day someone will love you' and that she was sorry, but for some reason Jace could never remember her face, and wondered what she meant, he was loved by his father, and wasn't he alright?

But he was just sad he could never really feel what the hug would be like, he always wondered what hugs were like but his father said that hugs aren't important and don't mean anything, but he liked the thought 9f them, and he wondered the woman's voice was always so sad and regretful, like before she died something happened that she blamed herself for, he wished he could tell her she didn't need to be, she seemed like a nice woman and how she could be at peace now, but he never could it was part of him trying to take a step towards who his father wanted him to be, his father said that him feeling bad for people and animals made him weak, he said that him feeling their pain was wrong and didn't do anything but make things worse.But he felt bad that the woman still seemed so sad even after she was dead, he always thought that once you were dead you should be able to be at peace.

He remembered there was a time when she sang to him in french and it was the most beautiful thing he had heard, and he hummed it to himself at night, it made him feel safe, but his father caught him.one time and said it made him as well, he said if you need a song to fall asleep then you are weak, he hadn't hummed it since then.

——————

There was also a man with brown hair who he saw once, he told Jonathan that he once lived here in this manor, and that he wished there weren't so many sins in these walls now, Jonathan didn't understand that either, he also told him that he didn't deserve any of this, it only confused him more, he never knew what the ghosts meant, what way was he living that was wrong?

His father told him this is how all kids grow up and that he should be happy that he even has shelter and food, and good training and that he has a father who loves him, he always felt bad when he made his father said these things, he shouldn't be making his father have to say these things and he only hoped he wouldn't throw him away like he said he would do, he just wanted his father to love him and be proud, he just wanted to stay, he had never heard his father say he was proud of him, it was his fault, he needed to do better.

——————

The day he saw his father die in front of him, he felt like there was nothing left and all he wanted to know was why was he alive if his father wasn't, there wasn't a point or purpose for him anymore, he was being sent to a family called the Lightwoods, he knew he would just be a disappointment to them, just like he was to his father, he wondered if it was his fault his father died maybe the angel thought he did something wrong.

And besides the Lightwoods were only taking him in cause he was his father's son, he wasn't actually worth anything, but they were gonna take him in, and he would do whatever can to make them want him, be whoever they want so that they will let him stay.

They also have kids around his age but he doesn't know how to interact with kids, what if they didn't like him or saw how useless he was, what if they thought he was too sensitive and gentle like his father, and they had a mom, he never had a mom, how were you supposed to act around a mom?

Would she like him? What are mom's like? Would he just be a burden?

He had no idea so he decided to ask the Shadowhunter on the boat who was supposed to watch him, but she just brushed him off and called him annoying, he didn't mean too, he was just curious, he was nervous not that he would ever tell anyone, he also knew his father would be angry if he was here.

——————

While he was fighting a werewolf he met a silent brother called Brother Zachariah, he seemed like a nice person and he acknowledged Jonathan and talked to him like he was an equal, Jonathan liked that about him, he liked it when people treated him like he wasn't a stupid kid, but there was something about this Silent Brother, something tragic about him, and he seemed thoughtful when he was replying to Jonathan like he could see through him, he hoped this Silent Brother didn't see through him cause that would be terrible for him.

But he did make Jonathan want to find a parabatai, maybe it would be nice to have someone who has your back, and maybe they couldn't really leave you right?

Maybe a parabatai would give Jonathan someone who would seem like they are there, Jonathan knew he could never be to close to a parabatai but the thought made him smile.

——————

Once he got off the ship and met the Lightwoods he didn't know what to say, Robert Light was looking at him like he was trying to figure something out, Maryse Lightwood looked like she was trying to figure him out, the older boy was looking at Jonathan with bright eyes, Jonathan didn't recognize the look, The girl was looking at Jonathan with a fierce look and he already had a lot of respect for her, she seemed cool.

then there was the little boy who ran up to him and hugged his leg, he didn't know how to react to this, it was strange, he wasn't use to this affection, then the boy called him Jonathing he had to admit it was cute, but then he said 'we love each other' and for a minute he didn't know what to do, do people say 'love you' that easily?

-

He had gotten hurt on the ship but never told anyone, he didn't want to be a burden to them, and he didn't want to be too much for Mr's Lightwood, he would make sure that they knew he would be good and listen.

But Alec and Isabelle the two older siblings found him trying to bandage himself up, Alec the eldest sibling was taken care of him like he was his own little brother, it was all so strange but he could get use to it, he also felt a connection to Alec since he saw him, he didn't know what it was though.

Mr and Mr's Lightwood ended up finding out and Maryse Lightwood gave him an Iratze, she then asked him if anyone called him anything but but Jonathan, and no, no had ever called him anything else, but if they wanted to change his name he would let him.

But then she asked what his middle name was, and she asked if he like the nickname Jace, oddly he loved it, it was special to him, someone had given him something, and he wouldn't have to hear his father's voice every time someone called him Jonathan, it always sent him back to 'Jonathan you can do better' 'Jonathan you are being weak' 'Jonathan you are being too sensitive' 'Jonathan you are too gentle' 'Jonathan if you don't do better I'll get rid of you'

Yeah, a new name would be nice, Jonathan sends chills down his spine and sent him back to all of that, he didn't understand why he would shake and feel like he couldn't breathe sometimes, it wasn't that bad.

——————

Late at night when the Lightwoods were asleep Jace would go wander around New York at night, he would try to find trouble, when ever he did and got hurt it got his mind off things, and it reminded him of his childhood, he was kinda sad when his bruises disappeared and his scars faded, his father gave them all to him but they were the last thing he had left of his father.

Jace tried doing things people said teenage boys did, he made out with people and did other things and it got his mind off things but only for a bit, it also got to a point where he used it to just distract himself, it never felt right though, like he shouldn't be doing it, like it wasn't right.

But it distracted him, it got him out of his mind even of for just a minute, he met this faerie girl named Kaelie and they messed around, she knew he was never serious with their relationship and one day she said something that made him think she figured him out a little and he didn't see her much after that, he couldn't let anyone know what was underneath, not that he really remembered that person much himself.

He always ran away whenever anyone tried to get close, it couldn't risk letting someone love him or loving someone himself, and he would never find love, he would never have a happy ending, he knew where his road would end and he didn't care there wasn't anything left for him, he would be a tragedy, and he would die in the end.

——————

The moment he saw her he didn't know why he wanted to walk to her, why she was clearity almost, and her name was Clary, and Clary sage came to his mind, yes she was clearity, she was home

Home? She was home, he wanted to get to know her.

-

After meeting Clary all Jace wanted was for her to see who he really was, wanted her to love him and never leave, she made him want to show Alec and Izzy more of himself as well, maybe he could try to find who he once was.

——————

It had been a few years since Jace and Clary had been together, since the wars had ended, and Jace had spent the last few years trying to heal from everything, he finally acknowledged that what his father did to him when he was a kid was terrible and he has hurt he has to heal, but he still can't find it in him to hate him, Clary and Alec have been reading up on Mental health, they both have been supportive of Jace and on the days when he can't deal with the world, Clary and Alec help him, he doesn't know what he'd do without them, Clary the light and love of his life, Alex his rock and Parabatai.

He still struggles a lot but he's learning and growing, he acknowledged he said and did things that were wrong and hurtful, he apologized and is doing better, but he is also trying to remember that person is in the past and he can grow and change, he is slowly learning how to better around people as well, god he has grown so much, who was that 16 year old? But the sad part he can't fully remember the 6 year old Jace, the Jace who wasn't afraid to show every bit of his gentleness and sensitive side, who wondered and wasn't afraid to ask questions, he's sad for that Jace and that he may never fully remember that boy.

Tagging @khaleesiofalicante cause I had an angst fest last night and wrote this, also I wanted to explore more of Jace's past that we never got to see that much of in the books

#jace herondale #jace lightwood herondale #clary fray #clary fairchild #clary x jace #clace #depression tw #tw angsty #anxiety tw #tw mental health #tw suicidal #tw suicide mention #abuse tw #tw sex mention #tw dark #tsc #the shadowhuter chronicles #tmi #the mortal instruments #alec lightwood #magnus bane #simon lewis #isabelle lightwood #valentine morgernstern #tw child abuse #tw death mention

[thoughts-of-the-unheard]

oh nothing in a book has ever made me as angry as fucking pissed off as i am now about the end of chain of iron and i have a lot to say on it (i have more to say on the last few chapters of chain of iron than i did on the entirety of the folk of the air series)

ill start with being glad lucie was able to raise jesse but definite reylo vibes there and im ignoring the end of that so watch me ignore if lucie dies ill be like yea ya know shes just,,, somewhere else but i hated how many secrets she kept from fucking everyone i mean she didnt tell a single person the whole truth of anything shes got secrets on top of secrets and thats not good but hey matthews drinking isnt good either and no one but the lucie and cordelia ever really say anything about that so theres that and im not counting james’ you dont love anyone as much as you love that bottle or w/e he said bc that wasnt talking to him to try to help and get him to stop drinking that was just a hit bc they were fighting and i hate that i hate that they were fighting bc they wouldnt have been if it wasnt for that fucking bracelet and which has caused so many fucking problems that i could cry in indignation bc its not its not fucking fair james spent the last what three years of his life in a fog not being able to feel and not being able to notice his parabatai slowly spiraling into a drunken depression from something thats not his fault at all i mean yes it is his fault that his mother took the potion but it is not his fault that the baby died thats no ones fault but whoever sold him the potion and yea he shouldnt have bought it in the first place but he was kid and he thought that was the only way he could get the truth and its unfair its fucking unfair and alistair god alistair he knows what he did in school was wrong but he saw it as the only way and now hes trying to make up for it and apologise and be a better fucking person and thomas sees that and thomas loves him for that and alistair wont let himself be loved and its not fair and anna oh anna talk about not letting yourself be loved she put on such a good front she did but she shouldnt have ariadne loves her and wants to be with her fully with her but anna has to understand the stigma of that and why ariadne cant come out yet hell thats still a problem today but we wont get into that because anna clearly loves ariadne but shes too afraid of getting hurt again and frankly she should just go for it i mean so what if you get hurt again at least youll finally feel something because i know she feels nothing for all those other girls i know theyre just replacements for ariadne and it isnt fair and speaking    of   replacements    fucking grace fuck grace but fucking grace just casually destroying james life listen i dont give a shit how she grew up i couldnt care less about how tatiana treated her and how scared she was of her because if shed just fucking helped then she wouldnt have to worry about a damn thing from tatiana i mean theres a number of things grace couldve done she couldve told the merry thieves everything and they couldve defeated belial like they are now and then no one would be around to help tatiana and grace couldve told anyone in the clave about all of tatianas shit and then they wouldnt have underestimated her and she wouldve been in a proper prison and thus unable to escape so damn easily and thus not fucking able to get to grace okay shes a fucking idiot and i hate her and i hate reading about her and im fucking disappointed in her for not taking the damn bracelet off okay i had very fucking low standards for her but i hoped she would take the bracelet off and at the very least i thought she could fucking not manipulate him further like god damn girl james is a much nicer and understanding person than i am and he would try to protect her from tatiana if he knew that grace was being threatened by her if grace took the bracelet off and told him the truth he would help her i fully believe that but since he had to find out on his own he was furious as he should be but i dont think he had to be nice to her when she showed up at the end there i mean i wouldve just yanked her in the house and started yelling at her right there fuck pretending his still under that enchantment fuck talking to her in private okay id chew her out in the entryway its not like cordelia doesnt need to know she fucking does and i think her finding out by overhearing james arguing with grace is actually a fantastic way to find out because she gets to hear everything all of what james feels and all of what grace did completely unfiltered not that james would try to hide it from her but hed definitely try to soften the blow and i just think she needs to hear the whole truth and AND i really fucking hate when characters overhear only part of something and assume the worst and run away its so common and i hate it so much and i hate how she ran to matthews because i knew it was going to happen and i knew matthew was in love with her and that it was already straining their bond because no one fucking realised that james was madly fucking in love with cordelia because of that fucking bracelet have i mentioned have i mentioned how much that bracelet pisses me off i dont think i have lets get into it so how james was unable to feel properly for three years and how his head was so foggy he was unable to think properly too and how because of that he missed matthew becoming a drunk and how the merry thieves look to james as their leader so if james isnt saying anything about it then there must not be anything to say and how james was already in love with cordelia before the bracelet and thats part of why grace couldnt control him and how he loved her for years how he was in love with her for years how no one knew this not even him because everyone thought he was in love with grace how cordelia was in love with him but thought he was in love with grace how cordelia got married to him knowing she was in love with him and thinking he was in love with someone else how she could tell he wanted her but thinking he just wanted her body and that he was still in love with grace how she’d rather have some of him than none of him at all how he picked out everything in their house with cordelia in mind how he remembered that she loves chess and she never thought he would how he learned a whole other language for her how he immediately checks on her after every battle how everyone, especially cordelia, just writes all this off as who knows what because he cant be in love with cordelia if hes in love with grace and hes obviously in love with grace how no one could ever notice there was something wrong because they were feeling the effects too how james was so in love with cordelia that that love unintentionally broke an enchantment made specifically for james by a Prince Of Hell one of the most powerful beings the entire species will ever meet and i think that covers the gracelet situation but i keep thinking of the scene where the bracelet cracks when grace first went to curzon street and kissed james and james’ mind literally thinking it was cordelia because who else would he be kissing and afterward grace saying ‘i dont know who you think you were kissing, james herondale, but it wasnt me’ and im like damn right bitch get fucked but back to cordelia running to matthews okay i know she didnt know matthew was in love with her so she wasnt doing anything wrong going to him but i kept thinking they were going to kiss or something because we all know matthews in love with her and there were a bunch of hints that cordelia might be attracted to matthew and she was upset about james and i just kept thinking something bad would happen and i was right but shit i didnt think id be like that i had no idea matthew was leaving for paris and even less of an idea that cordelia would join him and the thing is i cant even be mad i cant blame her i would probably do the same thing hell id probably ask to go with and im very proud of her for saying she’d go If matthew stops drinking i really appreicate that and i hope he gets better but the all those misses how james left the house only minutes after cordelia and arrived at matthews only minutes after they left and how he could see them at the train station could see them getting on the train and leaving and leaving him behind because his sister is missing and he shouldve ran and caught them and begged them to stay if not just to help find lucie because they both think of lucie as a sister and they absolutely wouldve stayed to help her and then there would be the chance for james to explain the gracelet situation and everything would be fine it would fine eventually and everything would be okay but NO and ive said a lot but i havent even mentioned cordelia being a paladin for fucking lilith yet where did that come from i was not expecting that ill tell ya see i thought it was odd that wayland the smith would still be alive and that it wasnt mentioned in any of the other books and i thought it was odd that some apparently god-like blacksmith would be wearing such an elegant jeweled necklace and i thought it was odd that magnus would be back from the spiral labyrinth for just a day and would be staying with hypatia instead of ya know his own place but shit id never have put it together as one person let alone lilith and i cant say it came out of nowhere because it said that edom used to be liliths so it would make sense that she would want belial gone so she could have it back but still that was unexpected but im not disappointed i mean im obviously upset that cordelia is now pledged to the mother of demons and feels like she cant even touch a weapon speaking of which what did she do with cortana where did she put it she said she dealt with it which makes me nervous but we know she couldnt have broken it or anything a) because i dont think she physically can and b) emma has cortana later but i think cordelia should keep cortana close since its the only thing that can mortally would belial and apparently he only needs one more before something happens im guessing before hes like gone gone so she definitely needs cortana and lilith wants her to kill belial so i think she should and if shes stuck as liliths paladin after that and never wants to touch a weapon again so be it but get rid of belial first ya know anyway i think there was something else i wanted to say but i cant remember so if you read all of this holy shit im sorry thats a lot i hope it was entertaining at least and i hope i didnt also get you pissed off

#chain of iron spoilers #chain of iron #coi #choi #the last hours #tlh #lucie herondale #jesse blackthorn #lucie x jesse #secrets #matthew fairchild #cordelia carstairs #cordelia herondale #james herondale #james x cordelia #drinking #the gracelet #the bracelet situation #parabatai #alistair carstairs #thomas lightwood #alistair x thomas #anna lightwood #ariadne bridgestock #anna x ariadne #grace blackthorn #tatiana blackthorn #belial #prince of hell #enchantment

[littleturtle95]

Alec’s birthday weekend celebration 🥰 Day 2 // free space. TLBOTW review

I havent’t seen a review for the book, only critics/praising and comments on specific moments, so I’m here to do a proper analysis.

This book has many perks and a few lows and I’d like to talk about both. I’ll start with the lows to end on a positive note. Surfing on the internet I’ve read that the plot feels a bit rushed, and I have to agree. I had the impression that the whole book serves the sole purpose of introducing Sammael and showing the last scene with all the princes of hell. Everything that leads to that (the thorn, the two swords then merging into one, the trip to Diyu, Shanghai and the false tracks) were born and died in this book and it felt like they were not well integrated with the TSC universe, they were just there to write something that could realistically lead to the final moment. The two swords Alec and Magnus carry are literal Gods that we’ve never heard before, they use them one time and then they’re gone. You don’t introduce something this powerful that carries so much weight just to shrug it off after one use, one use that doesn’t even involve the sake of our main characters (and why did only Alec have to be tested to prove his worth? both Alec and Magnus got a sword 🤔 that’s something I didn’t understand at all, if you know it feel free to explain in the comments) Another example of this are the two guardians of Diyu, the demons that heal constantly touching the ground of hell, apparently undefeatable. You don’t introduce something like that and kill it off in half a chapter, it’s anticlimactic. And you don’t hype up the father of all demons and then you get him defeated by Isabelle riding a tiger (come on he should have killed them all in that scene) and, even worse, you make him run away like a common demon after things start getting rough. Shinyu leaves and Sammael is “Fuck this, I’m out.” Bitch, you’re a Prince of hell! You’re the Prince of hell! Stop her! Kill them! WTF dude. Yeah, I think this is the main problem of the book. It introduces these huge elements and then it shrugs them off in the most anticlimactic way possible. The other thing I didn’t like was Ragnor’s reaction to Raphael’s dead. Ragnor probably isn’t one to make a fuss, but ffs they were extremely close friends. In TBC Ragnor scolds Magnus because Raphael calls him much more than Magnus does, they exchanged letters, calls, gossip, they used to have meetings, in GOTSM we see them greeting eachother with a high five, and we know how Raphael gets, he’s not so openly friendly even with Magnus and he died for him. They weren’t friends, they were great friends. All we get is a “he passes all stages of grief at once” and “I liked him // He liked you too”. Ohhhhhhhh and a “every war has a life count” like WHAT THE FUCK Seriously? Okay.

Well, what I didn’t like is over so let’s start with the perks. I’ve read many times that the characters are ooc. Jace feeling down because he has a broken foot and he can’t fight (Jace Herondale would never avoid a fight for a broken bone!!!), Simon feeling insecure (the first time he went down to hell things were even worse and he didn’t make such a fuss!!!), Alec calling Magnus pet names (it’s not like him he never did it!!!) and I’ll tell you this: At first I had this impression too, but in the long run I don’t think it’s fair to say those things. The TMI gang we know is younger, less mature, a teenage rebel gang. We read about the grown up them in other spin off books or in TDA, that’s for sure, but not as main characters, just as cameos, so it feels weird to see them as grownups. We thought we were familiar with them but we don’t feel the same familiarity anymore and that’s fine. It would be crazy if they were the same people as before. The Jace we knew was reckless, self destructive and didn’t care much if he lived or died. This Jace that doesn’t feel safe fighting with a broken foot and chooses to guide the others with his strategies is a Jace that knows his limits, a Jace that cares about his life and understands that his well being affects others, a Jace that accepts that the fact he can’t fight for once doesn’t make him less worthy. This Jace is the Jace he became, we are not used to it, we don’t recognise him at first, but what he does is perfectly normal. It would have been less realistic if he acted like he would have acted in City of Bones or even City of Heavenly Fire. This Simon is not the Simon he was the first time they went to Hell. That time he was a vampire, he wasn’t expecting to die. That time he cared deeply about Clary, he fancied Isabelle, but that was kind of all of it. Now he cares about Clary yes, but Isabelle is his family. Jace is his family. Magnus and Alec are his family, too. He is worried because he is mortal and because he has much more to lose. He is worried because he just lost a friend and for the first time he has to come to terms with the fact that being a Shadowhunter really means you go out in the morning and you don’t know if you’ll make it to dinner time. And this doesn’t only affect his bestfriend and the girl he dated while he dated some other chick. This affects him, his fiancée, his parabatai and the rest of his family. It’s not like City of Heavenly Fire, it’s okay for Simon to break down like this, it’s not ooc, it’s a character that changed because the story lead him to change. Alec calls Magnus pet names and is affectionate because he is not the closeted angsty teen he was in TMI. He is a father, a man, someone that knows his loved ones support him and someone who doesn’t have to hide. Come on, in GOTSM he showed Magnus’ and Max’s pictures to everyone he’s met, he stops randomly a werewolf girl getting ice cream, points at Magnus and says “See that man? That’s My Husband overthere.” He is not “He’s not my warlock” Alec, he is “That’s my husband” Alec and we aren’t used to it because we’ve never seen him as a main character in other books after his change, but we know this change happened so we can’t have a Pikachu face if Alec says “My love” or kisses him on the street in front of other people. This is not ooc, this is Alec, the same one, the one who is now more than twenty years old and wants to get married and is raising a child and in a few years is becoming consul. It would be absolutely nonsense for him to keep the distance he kept in TMI. Another complain I’ve seen is “not enough Malec and too many characters”. I don’t think there were too many characters and I don’t feel like we hadn’t enough Malec. Yes, the whole TMI gang was there but I liked that, that’s a plus for me. It’s true, Alec and Magnus’ relationship didn’t evolve in this book, they stayed pretty much the same, we don’t see an actual arc like we did in TRSOM but the romance was still there. There’s no need for relationship drama, and a book about romance doesn’t have to be a push and pull to be interesting. We had a lot of romance, but the angst and the challenges came from other people. It was an established relationship book and I think it worked well with it. The exchanges between the characters were genuine, witty, and I feel like every one of them bonded just right. The relationship between Alec and Jace, Simon and Clary, the other two couples, they were all on point and in character and I liked all their interactions. It was really nice to read them all together and I needed this. Now, the Tian discourse. I feel like Cassandra did a great foreshadowing with this one, something that I immediately noticed. In TRSOM I knew the whole time that Shinyun was going to betray them. It was said multiple times that Alec didn’t trust her and when they’re on the boat in Venice coming back from the party Alec is sleeping and still stops Shinyun that was going to touch Magnus waking up for a moment. Alec is really smart at reading people (except for understanding when they’re in love and that’s hilarious). A line that made me go mhhhh🤔 was when the book says “Alec trusted Tian”. Why say that in that way, totally random mid chapter? Why not to say the others trusted Tian too? Magnus at least? Or why to say anything at all? In that moment they weren’t discussing his worth and he hadn’t even started to act weird. The line made no sense. So I wondered if the line wasn’t saying Alec trusted Tian, the line was saying we should trust Tian, because the other time a trip like this happened Alec didn’t trust Shinyun and she turned out to be a total pain in the ass. Another thing I loved was the action. This is what I want from a TSC book, I want demon hunts, magic artifacts, trips to hell, weapon shopping. Our shadowhunters actually shadow hunting. This book had more of it than TRSOM, so kudos to that. To give this rant a end, I enjoyed this book. I enjoyed this book very much. I disagreed with some choices, I disliked some details, but I’m glad I bought it. It brought me back home, and that’s everything I wanted. This family, the TMI family, is a bit like my family now, and they were so much themselves that I couldn’t help but love it.

P.S. The cameos were rad. The parts with Maryse and Kadir were perfect, I adored Elyaas and when I read there was Raphael I screamed.

#alecsbdayweekwendcelebration #tlbotw spoilers #tlbotw spoiler #the lost book of the white #malec #magnus bane #alec lightwood #Detective AU #the eldest curses #review #book commentary #brithday event

[echo-bleu]

Hi, hello, hey! I'd like to request #48, I'm in the mood for angst 💙 Never worry about length, I love & adore everything you write 💙💙💙

Em. I know that by “never worry about length” you meant “it can be super short”. I swear I meant to write something short. I...didn’t.

#48 “You make me want things I can’t have.”

It’s currently 22k and still growing. There will be 5 or 6 chapters, and the prompt doesn’t even come into it until late chapter 4...

It is ANGSTY. It’s a canon divergence where Magnus erases his memories of Alec in 3x19 Read at your own risk and maybe prepare tissues. But I promise a happy ending.

This was betaed by the amazing JeanBoulet. Huge thanks also to the folks at the Fandom Playhouse discord server for all the encouragement and squealing! Especially you Em: I love you and this is a slightly early Christmas present!

[Specific warnings: suicidal thoughts (mentioned), terminal illness/poisoning, internalized ableism]

Summary:

Over the ten months that follow Alec's deal with Asmodeus, Alec struggles to adapt to a world without Magnus in it, Magnus falls in love all over again and everyone just tries to make it through another day.

or

Alec is dying from venom poisoning and Magnus doesn't even remember him.

Read on AO3.

take me back to the start (1)

He’s in Pandemonium, staring across the room at an apparition with a bow in his hand.

He’s in his loft and standing over a pentagram, an electric jolt going through his body as he links hands with someone.

He’s kneeling in his living room, pulling energy from the hand in his, stumbling back against a lean and muscular body, exhausted.

He’s holding up his glass and toasting with a tall man, whispering words, flirting.

He’s watching the man train, shirtless, swallowing back his desire and trying to find the words to say how much he wants him.

He’s standing in a corridor, hurt and heartbroken, the man turning his back on him.

He’s storming into a wedding, and the man is striding toward him—

Wait.

Back up.

*

Back to the start.

*

There’s something bittersweet about being back at Pandemonium after all this time. They’re not here to chase a demon this time, or to offer a priceless jewel in exchange for a summoning. They were trying to get Clary’s memories back then, too, Alec remembers. He was against that plan from the beginning, but it led him to Magnus.

He thought himself in love with Jace, back then.

It’s a strange and painful turn of events that leads them back here. He’s not in love with Jace anymore. Clary isn’t the only one missing her memories. Izzy isn’t wearing that necklace today, though it’s been around her neck every day since—

Alec stops his recollection right there, before it turns into something else. He struggles inside, leaning heavily on his crutches. The music assaults his ears as soon as he’s past the door and he winces. He stays back as Jace and Izzy lose themselves into the crowd. He shouldn’t even be here. He doesn’t know why he decided to come, beside to punish himself.

He adjusts his grip on the crutches and looks around the large, dimly lit room, his height allowing him to scan the crowd easily. He can still see Jace and Izzy making progress toward the mezzanine on the other side of the room. The raised space is less crowded, reserved by the bouncers as a VIP section. Alec can distinguish the couches where a mix of Downworlders are lounging, Seelies blending in with vampires and werewolves.

And a single warlock.

Magnus looks different. He’s let his hair grow a little, and it’s not styled up but to the side, streaked with green and purple — or maybe that’s just the light playing tricks on Alec’s eyes. His outfit is flamboyant, gold brocade on a deep red velvet, the high collar opened on his chest to reveal multiple necklaces. Alec swallows hard.

Alec wonders, even now, if Magnus toned himself down for him when they were together, or if he simply didn’t feel the need to be noticed by other people as much when he was with Alec.

Jace and Izzy reach the stairs and briefly argue with the bouncer at the bottom. After a minute, Magnus makes a gesture and they’re allowed in. Alec can’t hear them, not over the deafening music. He forces himself to take his eyes off Magnus and slowly, painstakingly makes his way around the room, circumventing the crowd to avoid getting toppled over. His balance isn’t good enough anymore to risk the dance floor, and he’s in enough pain as it is without taking a fall.

Izzy and Jace are arguing with Magnus, clearly agitated, when Alec makes it to the mezzanine. The bouncer lets him through without protesting. Alec doesn’t look up until he’s made it up the stairs, and when he does, he can hear bits of shouted conversation amid the music.

“—for a bunch of Shadowhunters to come to my club—”

“Magnus, I know you’re angry, but this is about—”

“I don’t know why I’d even listen to Lightwoods of all people—”

“Magnus! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

That’s Jace. Alec wants to intervene, but he can’t bring himself to yell from across the room. He’s not sure he can speak at all.

“I know Alec broke your heart, but—” Izzy starts.

Alec braces himself. Magnus’ eyes land on him, but there’s no recognition in them, only a frown. The truth feels like a knife twisting in Alec’s gut. He was still holding on to hope but his mother was right, there’s no denying it now. Then Magnus looks at Jace and Izzy, his gaze turning angry, and back at Alec. There’s a vague curiosity on his face, a slight tilt of his head Alec knows well — but not anymore, because it’s not meant to be this way—

“Who’s Alec?” Magnus asks.

The knife twists again. Alec stumbles, hissing in pain. It feels like an actual, physical wound. His throat knots up, and he turns away from Magnus. He needs to get out of here.

He ignores the stabbing pain in his hip as he stumbles down the stairs, a mess of crutches and barely controlled steps, and it’s a miracle he doesn’t end up face down at the bottom. He runs out the backdoor as fast as he can, into a back alley smelling of piss and forgotten garbage. The contents of his stomach make it to the floor, behind a trash can.

He leans against the wall, barely avoiding stepping into a puddle of his own vomit, and stays there until breathing doesn’t feel like swallowing needles anymore. He doesn’t know how long it’s been when Jace and Izzy find him. He can’t get Magnus’ face out of his head. The way his eyes slid over Alec like he wasn’t even there. Who’s Alec?

“Alec,” Jace calls him. He must have felt Alec’s distress through the parabatai bond. Though Alec isn’t sure what Jace feels from him anymore, these days. Between the agony of leaving Magnus and his injury, Alec has tried his best to close his side of the bond.

And the last few days, he’s pretty sure Jace has tried to do the same for him. He looks rough, like he hasn’t slept in days — none of them has. Not since Clary left.

“Did he agree?” he asks.

Izzy scrunches up her face in pain. “Yeah, but—”

“He doesn’t remember us,” Alec states.

“Alec—”

“He erased his memories of me, and by extension, you. I hoped he’d remember Clary, since he knew her from before.”

“He does, that’s why he agreed to help,” Jace says. There’s hope and sorrow mixing on his face, warring with each other like he doesn’t know how to feel either. “But how could he—”

“I broke his heart,” Alec murmurs. “He has the power to erase me, so he did. At least he’s not hurting.”

“You knew?” Izzy asks, shocked.

“Yes. Mom went to see him, before the battle. She figured out what I’d done and she tried to tell him. He treated her like she was still a Circle member and he shut the door in her face. She told me once I woke up.”

“Oh, Alec,” Izzy squeezes his arm. Alec leans into her touch, even though he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want comfort. He wants...he wants the sweet relief of oblivion, too. But he’s not going to get that. Not yet.

And he wouldn’t want to forget Magnus for the world.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Jace asks.

Alec looks away, fighting back tears. It’s answer enough. He didn’t want to believe it, not really. He knew. He knew when Magnus didn’t come after the battle of Alicante. Catarina confirmed it, with a gentleness that surprised even Alec.

But everyone is gentle with him these days, like they’re walking on eggs. He’s become fragile. No, broken.

Broken beyond repair.

*

Magnus sighs. Having Shadowhunters in his loft makes his skin crawl. At least when he told them to bring a fifth they chose someone decent, Clary’s vampire friend Simon. It might make it harder to do the ritual, but Magnus won’t have to clean up after a fourth thoughtless Shadowhunter.

The two he’s already interacted with — Jace and Isabelle — are brash and annoying, clearly used to the spotlight. Simon seems to be dating Isabelle, though Magnus can hardly see what he sees in her beside her looks. She was downright rude the other day.

The third Shadowhunter is more interesting. He’s tall and handsome, honestly one of the most beautiful men Magnus has ever seen, though he looks sad and drawn. There’s something familiar about him that Magnus can’t place. Unlike his sister, he doesn’t particularly look like either of his parents, so it’s not that. Maybe something from one of the other Lightwoods or Truebloods Magnus has known over the years.

He’s avoiding Magnus’ gaze with a consistency that would be admirable if it wasn’t uncomfortable. Is he really so sure of his superiority that he won’t even look a Downworlder in the eyes?

No, it’s not that. Magnus is almost sure there’s something else, something he should know. Something...something to do with the box in his nightstand, the one with a carved bow and arrows on the lid.

He knows what the box is. He knows it contains memories he chose to remove from his mind, memories that must have been painful – Magnus knows himself. If the memories had been dangerous, he’d have put them somewhere safer. This is something else. This is personal. And something in his subconscious is telling him that these Shadowhunters have something to do with it.

It’s only one more reason not to trust them, as far as Magnus is concerned. If they hurt him badly enough that he had to remove his memories...that means heartbreak. Did they do something to his lover, somehow? Did they kill the one Magnus loved?

The tall Shadowhunter – Alec – talks quietly with his siblings in a corner of the room. He’s walking with difficulty, leaning on metal crutches that make a soft tap on the floor each time he takes a step. Magnus tracks him through the room that way, watching him through the corner of his eyes. Each move looks painful, and there’s something emanating from him, like an unknown sickness. Some sort of battle injury, Magnus guesses. From fighting demons in New York, or from the now infamous Battle of Alicante four months ago? He knows there were many casualties, and there must have been wounded Shadowhunters too.

“Magnus,” Isabelle calls him quietly. Magnus snaps back to the task at hand. They’re not here for a social call.

“What?” he snaps at her.

“I know you don’t remember us, but you know you’re missing memories, right?”

“Yes,” Magnus sighs. “I’m not interested in knowing more about them, especially not from you. I removed them for a reason.”

“Alright, alright,” Isabelle relents. “So, do you think you can help Clary?”

“If the Angels took away her runes and her memories, it’s not going to be the same as simply unlocking a mental block or retrieving memories,” Magnus says. “This won’t be easy, and I’m not sure it can be done.”

He sees the others, except Alec, gather around him to listen. “Once, you helped her get back her memories,” Jace said. “It didn’t work—” he glances at Alec across the room, “—but it could have.”

Magnus’ memory of that day is present, but incomplete, full of holes he knows are due to a memory spell. He doesn’t remember why it didn’t work. He hopes it won’t matter today.

“Those memories were ones I took myself,” he says. “I fed them to a memory demon. Biscuit’s current situation is a tad more complicated.”

“Then what are you going to do?” Isabelle asks.

“You said she has pure angel blood, didn’t you? And so do you,” Magnus points at Jace. “The same blood, in fact.”

“That’s right.”

“We’re going to use that. We’re going to ask for her memories back directly from the source. We’re going to summon an angel.”

“Is it safe?” Alec asks, approaching them, and Magnus realizes that this is the first time he’s spoken aloud in his presence.

“No,” Magnus answers.

“Alec, if there’s even a chance—” Jace pleads. “We have to.”

Alec closes his eyes, looking pained. “Jace—”

“No, Alec. It’s not fair. She didn’t chose this.”

Alec opens his eyes again, his whole body stiffening. Isabelle’s eyes widen as she looks between him and Jace, and even Jace seems to freeze in shock at his own words. The whole room appears to hold its breath, waiting to see Alec snap.

“You’re right,” Alec says after a moment, his shoulders slumping. He looks like he’s holding the weight of the world on his shoulders. Magnus feels a strange instinct to help him, to offer a body to lean on – but he doesn’t move. “She didn’t. We’ll do it.”

He’s clearly the leader of their group, because after that, there’s no protest, no question, not even from Simon. In fact, Simon looks at Alec with a mixture of admiration and sadness in his eyes, and his gaze is hard when he turns back toward Magnus.

Magnus doesn’t know what he’s done to provoke this kind of hostility. From cocky Shadowhunters like Jace and Isabelle, he expects it, though he’s starting to suspect that their carelessness is only a facade. From Simon, with whom he’s only had friendly, even fatherly interactions? Not so much.

Alec seems to be the only one not angry with him in some way. Instead, he steals looks at Magnus when he thinks Magnus is not looking, and his gaze in those moments is too intense, filled with emotions Magnus can’t even begin to comprehend.

Isabelle makes Alec sit down on the couch while Magnus prepares the ingredients needed for the ritual. Alec refuses at first, looking around him like he doesn’t want to touch anything in the loft, but he relents after half an hour, clearly in a lot of pain. He stays with his back ramrod straight, refusing to relax. He touches the leather of the couch almost reverently, and Isabelle just tilts her head sadly.

Magnus is being far too curious about them. He has no reason to be. They’re just Shadowhunters paying for his services, that’s all. He needs to focus on helping Clary.

The ritual involves painting the ceiling as well as the floor, so he concentrates all his magic on the intricate drawings. “Is this some kind of angelic pentagram?” Simon asks curiously.

“Not exactly,” Magnus answers. “There are similar elements, but this is an angelic Seal.” He doesn’t add that it’s the archangel seal he inherited from his father. An entrance to Heaven, right here at his doorstep, even for a Fallen angel. “It still needs five people to activate it.”

“Summoning an angel,” Simon says. “It’s gotta be dangerous, right? I mean, not for them, but for us?” he gestures to Magnus and himself, excluding the Shadowhunters.

“It could be painful, if the angel doesn’t like our demon blood. Are you ready to do that for Clary?”

“I’d go to Hell for her,” Simon says, tilting his head. “And further.”

Magnus nods. “Angels are unpredictable, but this one will be bound by the Seal. He shouldn’t be able to do true harm.”

“So we just ask him to give back Clary’s memories?” Isabelle asks.

“I’m just handling the Seal,” Magnus says. “It will take all my energy. Jace will ask the question. I suggest you think about what you want to ask.”

Jace nods from where he’s standing in parade rest by Alec. “I already know,” he says.

“Then gather up,” Magnus says. “I’m ready.”

They all stand around the circle he painted on the ground, each going inside one of the smaller circles linked by a network of white lines. Alec leaves his crutches on the floor outside of the Seal area and limps over to his spot with a grunt, standing with his full weight on his good leg.

“Link hands,” Magnus orders.

Isabelle and Jace exchange a look Magnus can’t interpret. They’re on each side of Alec, with Simon beside Isabelle and Magnus completing the circle between him and Jace. He reaches out and clasps his hands with the two men.

The pull on Magnus’ power, as soon as the circle is closed, is immense. If he hadn’t recently received an enormous boost, thanks to his father’s death and Edom’s destruction, he wouldn’t have been able to handle it. He focuses his energy on keeping the Seal stable, between the floor and the ceiling, a column of light with them on the outside.

The form of the angel starts to shimmer inside the light, wings folded back against his back. He doesn’t become fully solid, instead remaining ethereal, almost see-through.

“Who dares to summon an angel?”

His mouth doesn’t move, but the voice rings in all their heads.

Magnus grits his teeth against the pain blooming in his chest, tightening his hold on Simon and Jace’s hands. It was always going to be painful. The angels hate nothing more than demon blood, even – especially – when the blood is from a fallen angel. It hurts like hell, but Magnus has been to hell, and he’s come back. He can do this. Simon is wincing, but not as badly, his own demon blood more diluted.

What Magnus doesn’t expect is for Alec to cry out and crumple, barely holding onto his siblings’ hands. He’s angel-blooded. He shouldn’t be in pain. Or is it just his injury acting up under the pressure of the Seal?

He looks barely conscious, his mouth half-opened in a cry of pain. Magnus swallows against his own throbbing chest and signals to Jace to get a move on.

“Raziel’s soldier, and Ithuriel’s child,” he answers. “I am of angel blood.”

The angel turns toward him. “Jonathan Herondale. Yes, we know of you. What do you want from the Angels?”

“My lover, Clarissa Fairchild. She’s one of your children, too. You took her powers and her memories.”

“She played with powers beyond her understanding,” the angel says. “She was punished.”

“I’m asking the angels for forgiveness,” Jace says. “Forgive her, and she and I will be your soldiers on Earth, for as long as you desire.”

Magnus grimaces and hopes Jace knows what he’s doing. He hasn’t had much dealings with the angels before, but this is a not promise that can be taken lightly.

The pain is getting harder to bear, and Magnus wishes Jace would hurry up. Simon is looking a little frayed around the edges, his face screwed up in pain.

Alec looks like he’s hanging on by a thread.

“It is not in my power to decide,” the angel says. “But the Angels are fair. We do not deal punishment unjustly. Her sentence is not forever.”

“She’ll be forgiven?” Jace asks, his surprise showing through his facade. “She’ll get her memories and her runes back?”

“Eventually.”

“But when?”

The angel opens his mouth, but before he can answer, Alec lets out a cry of pain and his hands slip out of his siblings as he falls to the floor. The circle breaks, and the pillar of light disappears, taking the angel with it. “No!” Jace cries out, but he doesn’t reach for the angel. He reaches for Alec instead.

He falls to his knees beside his brother. “Alec!”

“I’m fine,” Alec grunts, through he’s clearly anything but. He’s curled up on himself, his face white with agony, even now that the angel is gone and the pressure on Magnus’ chest has left. “I’m sorry, Jace.”

“It’s okay, brother,” Jace murmurs. “Why did he react like this?” he asks louder, looking up at Magnus.

Magnus shakes his head. “I don’t know. It should only have done that if he had demon blood.”

Jace and Isabelle share a look, and Simon’s breath hitches. Magnus looks between them, but none of them is forthcoming with whatever knowledge they have that Magnus doesn’t share.

Alec sits up with Jace’s help, his hand going to his right hip as he groans in pain. “Help me up,” he asks his brother. Jace seems ready to protest, but he must see something in Alec’s face, because he gets Alec’s arm around his shoulders instead. Isabelle goes to retrieve the crutches and gives them back to Alec, who takes them with trembling hands.

Magnus’ heart tightens, seeing him in such obvious pain. He doesn’t know why—

Or maybe he does. The signs are all there, and it’s time he stopped pretending not to see them.

These Shadowhunters didn’t hurt his lover or his friends. These Shadowhunters were his friends, somehow. And Alec…

Alec is the one who must have broken his heart. That’s the only explanation for what Magnus feels right now. It’s like body memory, almost, a level of compassion and love that cannot possibly come from the few interactions they’ve had that he remembers.

Magnus steels himself against the part of his brain that wants to get the memory box from his nightstand right now and open it. He removed those memories for a reason. Because living with them must have hurt too much.

He’s not going to go back on that and expose himself to that kind of suffering just because he’s curious.

“What does it mean for Clary?” Simon asks.

“I don’t know,” Jace says. “He said she’d be forgiven eventually, but—”

“Angels don’t see the passage of time like you do,” Magnus cuts in. “It could be years. Decades.”

“Is there anything we can do?” Isabelle asks. Alec remains quiet, head down, still leaning against Jace.

“Nothing I can think of,” Magnus answers. He stands up straighter. “Which means you’re no longer in need of my services. Please refrain from coming back here unless there’s a true emergency.”

He doesn’t want the reminder that he decided to erase the last — what, three years? — of his life.

Isabelle looks visibly shaken by that, and she swallows. Alec doesn’t look up at all. He turns away like he doesn’t want Magnus to see his face, and Magnus wonders what he’s trying to hide. Jace throws him a murderous look, and Simon shakes his head in sadness.

“We’ll get out of your hair, then,” Isabelle says quietly. “We won’t bother you again.”

Good riddance, Magnus thinks.

It rings wrong even in his head.

*

“How are you doing?”

Izzy leans against the door frame of Alec’s office. She looks tired, overworked. She’s taken on so much in the last few months.

It’s been two weeks since Alec collapsed at Magnus’. He can still feel the pain burning through his veins, eating away at his body, each day bringing him closer to the edge.

“I’m fine,” Alec says, putting down his pen. He shifts in his seat painfully, his hip seizing. He’s been sitting still for too long.

“I wish you would stop saying that,” Izzy sighs.

“I wish you would stop asking me,” Alec shrugs.

They’ve been beating around the bush, trying to ignore the elephant in the room. It’s too big to tackle during work days. They go through the motions like it all still matters, the Clave, the Downworld Cabinet, the patrols. Alec can see Jace and Izzy struggle with it, but he can’t do anything for them.

Clary’s gone back to art school, all knowledge of the Shadow World erased from her mind. Alec has made sure that she’s safe and settled, and all that’s left is watching Jace tear himself apart as he grieves. The hope that the angel brought them isn’t enough. Not when it’s so vague.

Not when everything else is falling apart, too.

It’s been just over four months since it started, since the day Alec made a deal with Asmodeus. It feels like an eternity ago, and yet also like it was yesterday. Magnus’ desperation as Alec broke up with him is seared in his mind forever, and it accompanies Alec’s every waking thought.

Magnus doesn’t remember.

It’s a comfort, these days. Losing Magnus will remain the hardest thing Alec has ever done, but he’s thankful for it, however much it hurts. Because it means that Magnus has his magic again, that he can be happy.

Because it means that Magnus doesn’t have to live through the aftermath.

It’s been four months, too, since the Battle of Alicante. Magnus missed it all. He wasn’t there when they all thought they were going to die there, trapped by the demon hordes, caught in between two forces of evil. He wasn’t there to hold Alec’s hand when he woke up in the hospital to a broken body and demon venom coursing through his veins.

He wasn’t there, when they figured out that it was a death sentence.

Catarina slowed the spread of the venom, but nothing she or the Silent Brothers tried could get it out of his system.

“You’re hurting,” Izzy says, walking in fully and closing the door behind her. “I can see it. I know you don’t like the painkillers, but you need them.”

Painfree runes have long stopped working on Alec’s abused body. The mundane pills were Catarina’s idea. She was there in the aftermath of the battle, when Magnus wasn’t, she ran triage with the Silent Brothers and saved countless Shadowhunters. She did her best to piece Alec’s shattered hip back together and she was the one who figured out what was wrong with him.

“They’re not much use anymore,” Alec admits. The pills are some of the strongest on the market, but his Nephilim body metabolizes everything faster than a mundane, and they barely take the edge off.

No, it’s better that Magnus isn’t here. That he didn’t have to sit by Alec’s bedside after the battle, praying at every new treatment, every test, that something would change. That he doesn’t have to watch the venom slowly win over Alec’s body, leaving him weak and trembling. That he won’t have to wait with them for the day it will reach his heart, and it will all be over.

Maybe a year, Catarina told him. If you stop working and rest most of the time.

Alec has done neither. He can’t. He’ll go out of his mind if he tries to rest anymore than he already does. Work takes his mind off things.

He’s still the Head of the Institute, if only because there is barely enough left of the Clave to hold Alicante together, and appointing new Heads has been the least of their problems.

“There has to be something else we can do,” Izzy says. “To relieve the pain, at least.”

“You know there isn’t,” Alec sighs.

She’s not doing well. None of them are. They’re barely holding themselves together.

They lost their father, the day of the battle. Robert Lightwood didn’t make it out of the destroyed city. They’ve lost Clary and Magnus, and now they’re losing Alec too, as his deterioration accelerates with each passing day.

Their whole family is falling apart.

“Let’s go out tonight,” Izzy says, faking lightness. “We can meet Simon and Maia at the Hunter’s Moon. It will be nice.”

Alec wants to say yes, to give her that, a moment of normalcy amid the chaos. But he’s exhausted and in pain, the ache in his hip never letting up. He’s tired of people watching what they say around him. Looking at him like he’s going to disappear any minute.

He shakes his head. “I think I’ll just go to bed early tonight. I could use the rest.”

Izzy nods wordlessly, disappointed but understanding. “I love you, big brother,” she says.

She says it a lot, these days.

“I love you too,” Alec replies, like every other time. There’s nothing else to say. No it’s gonna be okay, Izzy because it’s not, and they both know it.

Someone knock on the door. “Yes?” Alec calls.

Underhill pokes his head in. “Sir, your mother is here.”

“Let her in,” Alec nods. Maryse has been hovering, and he can’t blame her. Looking at Izzy, he can’t deny her the little bit of hope in her eyes. “Let’s make it a family thing,” he says. “Go get Jace and Max.” He can hold off his exhaustion for a few more hours, for them.

Izzy slips out with a smile on her face and Underhill comes back with Maryse in tow.

“Hey, Mom,” Alec smiles weakly, pushing himself up to greet her.

Maryse strides to his side and hugs him tightly. “Alec,” she breathes, love and pain warring in her voice. “How do you feel today?”

“Not great,” Alec murmurs.

He finds himself honest with her, these days, more than he is with his siblings. She’s been his strongest support, despite their once strained relationship, and Alec is too spent to be angry with her as he once was. All of that doesn’t matter, anymore.

Maryse doesn’t break down, at least not in his presence. But Alec is too much like her for his own good, and he can see her pain in every gesture, in the way her hugs last a little longer, the way she tightens her hand on his arm, the way her voice hitches every time she says goodbye after spending time with him.

She hands him his crutches and supports him as he gets situated. Walking is getting harder every day, as the venom lights his nerve endings on fire with every step on his already unstable hip. Maryse just squeezes his shoulder as he hobbles around his desk and hovers until he’s safely sitting on the couch.

“Tell me,” she says quietly, kicking off her shoes and curling up beside him.

They’ve become tactile in a way they never were before. Neither of them likes being touched much, but as it turns out, terminal illness has a way of making you reevaluate your priorities. Alec lets his family hug him as much as they want to now, even on the days it makes his skin crawl.

He sighs, leaning his shoulder against his mother’s. “The new Inquisitor is a homophobic dick. And he wants me removed. He says I can’t do my job anymore.”

“Jia won’t let him do it,” Maryse says.

“I don’t know. He’s not wrong.”

Maryse takes his hand in hers. “Alec, even now, you’re a much better Head than I ever was. You’re holding up admirably in the worst of circumstances.”

“I’m tired,” Alec murmurs. “I don’t know how long I can do this.”

She squeezes his hand, and he sees her swallow back her emotions. “If you feel like you should step down to rest, I’m sure Jens can handle the fort for a while. Until Izzy’s ready.”

Not until you come back. She’s the only one of all of them who faces the inevitable and doesn’t try to pretend that Alec is going to get better. If nothing else, she’s never been one to shy away from the hard truths.

“Maybe soon,” Alec says. He doesn’t want to, but he’s quickly getting to the point where he won’t be able to work anymore. “I miss him,” he adds, his voice breaking. “I can’t stop.”

Alec can’t get Magnus’ face out of his head. The way Magnus looked at him like he was nothing to him. Alec is nothing to him, now. Magnus doesn’t remember any of their time together.

It hurts more than Alec would have thought possible. He’d thought he’d already reached rock bottom, that nothing could possibly hurt worse than breaking up with Magnus. Than waking up in that hospital bed, having lost everything. But that look haunts him.

Maryse just hugs him without a word.

“Alec!” Max exclaims, rushing into the office with his usual energy. Izzy and Jace are on his heels. He jumps on the couch on Alec’s other side, missing Alec’s quick wince when it jostles his leg.

Max is old enough to understand what’s happening, and not quite old enough to know what to do with his emotions. He alternates between acting like everything is fine and randomly bursting into tears, with no in-between. Today seems to be the former, because he starts rambling about his training without a care in the world.

Alec looks up at Jace and they share an entire conversation in an eyebrow raise. Alec keeps his side of the parabatai bond firmly closed, but he knows that his pain leaks through anyway. He can feel Jace’s despair, the way he’s barely hanging on by a thread.

They say the worst pain a Shadowhunter can endure is the loss of his parabatai. Alec remembers the words. It’s one of the things they learn, in the initial parabatai testing. They’re asked if it’s worth it, risking that.

When they gave a resounding yes, their fourteen-year-old brains had no space to comprehend the pain of today.

Jace and Izzy watch Alec like he’s about to disappear, and he knows, he can see, that they can’t yet imagine what will happen after.

They don’t talk about it during the day. It’s too heavy, to much to bear for all of them.

At night, Alec finds himself more often than not sandwiched between Jace and Izzy in his bed. They come claiming they have nightmares or can’t sleep, never quite saying that they just want to feel close to someone else, close to Alec. They say the words, quietly, the words that won’t come out during the day. It was worth it.

And sometimes, where thou diest, I will die. On those days, Alec hugs Jace tight as he tries to convince himself that he doesn’t mean it, that he will go on.

“—and Kara keeps saying I need to work on my defense, but she’s not a teacher!” Max is saying when Alec tunes back into his surroundings. He’s absently drumming his fingers on his good leg, his other hand still in Maryse’s.

“You should listen to her, Max,” Izzy says. “She’s one of the best fighters of her generation. She’s a fairly new transfer,” she explains to Maryse.

“She’s not even a grown-up!” Max protests. “Besides, Aline said she needs to stop overthinking every fight. So she’s not that good.”

“I don’t think you were supposed to hear that,” Alec says, fairly sure that Aline was not referring Kara’s training but rather the frequent phone calls with her deeply transphobic father that send her crying to either of their offices. “You should spend more time training and less time eavesdropping.”

Max pouts and they all laugh, the lightness of the moment freeing them from the stifling sorrow that’s settled between the adults in the room.

Maryse makes the effort to keep the conversation going after that, though she never releases Alec’s hand. It feels good, to have a normal moment with his family. Jace still has shadows in his eyes, but he settles in a chair and even smiles. Izzy’s cheerfulness sounds a bit fake, but she tries. Alec struggles to keep the pain from showing, but he watches them and feels a deep swarm of love for all of them.

After they’re all gone, Alec painfully stumbles back to his desk and pulls up a piece of paper and a pen.

Dear Magnus, he writes. He pauses, and wishes that even Magnus’ name didn’t make him want to cry. Every minute I spent with you was worth the pain it causes me today.

He writes on, until his hand shakes too much to continue. He doesn’t cross out anything, or bother censuring himself. He puts down his pen, finally, and folds the paper carefully.

He unlocks the bottom drawer of his desk with a rune and opens it. He goes to slip the letter he’s just written inside, but he can’t help but stare at the small box there. He doesn’t open it. He knows its contents by heart. He can almost feel it under his finger, the raised edges of the Lightwood crest in smooth silver, the ring he was going to give Magnus. It will go to Izzy, now. There’s a letter for her, underneath the box.

There are other letters, too. One addressed to the next Head of the Institute, instructions on how to keep the Downworld Cabinet going. Alec’s will, freshly updated. Every Shadowhunter is required to draft a will before their first mission in the field, and rewrite it every year. They know better than any other mortal that they can die at any time.

There’s a letter for Jace. One for Maryse. One for Max, who will have to finish growing up without a father and down one brother.

The rest are for Magnus. During the endless days he spent laid up in the hospital, Alec took to writing him letters. In them, he recounted the strongest beats of their relationship, the sweet moments, the hard truths. Everything Alec can remember, since he now has to remember for them both.

He doesn’t think Magnus will ever read them, but he’s not doing this for Magnus. He’s doing this for himself. One last indulgence, since he’s no longer good for anything else.

A drop falls on the top letter, turning the paper darker. Alec jumps and realizes it’s sweat falling down from his hairline. He puts down today’s letter, carefully tucking it in to make a tidy stack, and closes the drawer, his hands trembling a little. His fever is spiking again. In a few hours, he’ll be delirious and out of his mind.

Jace says he cries out for Magnus, in the worst moments. Alec has stopped letting anyone else into his Soundless-rune proofed room. It’s getting worse. It used to happen every few days, but recently, he hardly ever goes a night without losing himself to the venom in his body.

He’s slipping away.

He doesn’t want to die, if only for the pain he knows it will cause his family. But more and more, on days like today, he thinks it might be a relief.

#shadowhunters #malec #malec fic #alec lightwood #magnus bane #isabelle lightwood #jace wayland #angst #take me back to the start #mine #echo's fanfiction #hmdiscord #malec discord server #moonlight-breeze-44 #asks

[bytheangell]

Love Me When It Hurts (1/3)

(Read on AO3) (Part 1 is for my @shadowhunterbingo​ square: Shadowhunter!Simon) (Warning for temporary character death) Part 1:  Good Things Fall Apart

“That was amazing!” Simon exclaims, walking backward so that he can face Jace while he talks. Jace can only laugh and smile fondly at the excitement on his boyfriend’s face.

“Si, we’ve had fights like that a million times,” Jace points out. The patrol itself was routine and the demons they came across hadn’t been particularly powerful or numerous. Still…

“Yeah, but we were really in sync tonight. You had to feel it too, right? It’s like we could read each other’s minds! I don’t think I’ve ever felt so connected,” Simon counters.

Jace has to agree. Tonight was particularly impressive, even for them. They always fight well together, and even though their paths crossed too late in life for them to become parabatai they still fight like it sometimes, like they’re one. Outside of Alec, there’s no one else Jace trusts more or cares more about.

“I can think of a few other ways I’d rather be connected to you right now,” Jace says suggestively, pulling Simon off the main sidewalks and around the corner into a dark city alleyway. Pressing Simon against the wall, Jace catches Simon’s surprised gasp with his lips, swallowing it and smirking into the kiss as Simon’s gasp shifts into a low moan.

“Jace,” Simon whines, pulling his face back just enough to get the words out. “As much as I love the way you get after a fight, alleys are gross and the Institute is like, not even twenty minutes away. I promise I’ll make it worth your while if we wait to do this in an actual bed and not a sticky alley wall.”

Jace sighs, giving Simon’s bottom lip a light bite before pulling away.

“Fine,” Jace agrees. “But don’t think I won’t hold you to that.”

Jace turns to leave the alley, but instead comes face to face with a person - no, a quick flash of fangs correct, a vampire - blocking their path. Jace spins back around to warn Simon only to find the space behind him empty, followed by the sounds of a struggle echoing out of the shadows beyond where he can see.

Jace’s heart races, his hand fumbling into his jacket pocket for his stele since his patrol runes wore off a few minutes ago. But he doesn’t have time to wait, not even a second, so he starts forward even as he searches.

“Simon?!” Jace calls, but only manages a single step forward before superhumanly strong arms pull him back. The same inhuman strength is put into the force behind the blunt object that connects with Jace’s temple once, then twice, before he drops unconscious to the pavement below.

---

Jace wakes up alone in the alleyway. It takes him a moment to recollect exactly how he got there, but once he does his phone is out and he’s dialing Alec’s number immediately, getting shakily to his feet before turning to make his way toward the Institute.

“Jace,” Alec answers, the relief palpable in his voice. “Where are you? Are you okay?”

Jace ignores the question in favor of one of his own. “Is Simon there?”

He knows the answer to the question before he asks it, but he has to ask it. There’s a deep, foreboding feeling in the back of his mind that Simon wouldn’t just leave him alone and go back to the Institute. That for Alec to sound that relieved just to hear Jace’s voice must mean something is seriously wrong.

Jace knows, deep down, before Alec says it, that something terrible happened.

“Jace…” Alec’s hesitation brings tears to Jace’s eyes, his footsteps speeding up into a run he fears is too little, too late. Still, a part of him thinks that maybe if he gets back fast enough, maybe if they’re out looking for Simon the way he’s sure they were looking for him…

“Alec,” Jace says, his voice shaking. “Where is Simon?”

“Just come back to the Institute and-” “Alec!” Jace stops running abruptly. He can barely breathe, but he forces the word out, desperate and pleading, trying to ignore the way his hand starts to shake as much as his voice. “Please.”

For several long, agonizing seconds, the only sound between them is Jace’s breathing. Jace almost wonders if Alec hung up, or if he’s really not going to talk to Jace until he’s back at the Institute. But then-

“Simon’s here,” Alec says, with a tone of finality that brings Jace to his knees in the middle of the sidewalk.

“He’s dead, Jace.”

---

Alec’s voice sounds a million miles away as he fills Jace in on what happened after he got knocked out. After you let yourself get ambushed, after you let your guard down, after you failed to save Simon, his mind supplies. Jace forces himself to focus beyond the guilt in his head to what Alec says.

Alec tells Jace that Raphael showed up with Simon’s dead body and the vampire who killed him. Simon, who fought until the very end, bit the vampire who abducted him in an attempt to defend himself and died with that blood in his system. The vampire responsible was turned in directly by Raphael to the Institute to await the Clave’s punishment. The entire incident is dealt with and wrapped up with a neat little bow, so far as the law is concerned.

All except one thing: that vampire blood in Simon’s system means there’s one decision Alec isn’t leaving up to the Clave, or the law. One decision Jace has to make on his own.

Jace does. Alec offers to help but Jace insists on doing this part alone, insists that when it’s all said and done he wants to be the only one this falls back on, if it has to fall back on anyone. This is why, not long after the debriefing, Jace stands over Simon’s body which rests at the bottom of the hole Jace dug himself.

Alec stands beside him, mostly for moral support. As much as Jace tries to hide the worst of the pain he feels from his parabatai he knows it’s too much, that the desperation must be leaking through the cracks because Alec refuses to leave his side even if he isn't directly involved in the process. Jace is secretly thankful for the company despite his numerous insistences that he doesn’t need it.

“We joked about this once,” Jace says abruptly into the silence. “About the two of us being ‘too wonderful to deny future generations’, and that someone should figure out a way to make us immortal.”

Jace wants to laugh at the memory, but he can’t. This isn’t a joke, and there is no ‘us’ - it’s only Simon. Simon, whose lifeless body is waiting below him while he stalls with pointless anecdotes.

“Tell me he won’t hate this. Tell me I’m doing the right thing,” Jace says, turning to Alec. He doesn’t care if Alec lies to him, he just needs to hear it, needs the reassurance.

“I can’t do that,” Alec says. “You knew him best, if anyone has that answer it’s you. But for what it’s worth, I don’t think he could ever hate you for anything, especially not something you did with good intentions.”

It isn’t quite what Jace was hoping for, but it’s honest, and that means more than a comforting lie, he supposes.

Jace nods, not saying another word before lifting his shovel and lowering the first bit of dirt on top of Simon’s body.

#Simon Lewis #Jace Wayland #raphael santiago #jimon #shadowhunters #hmdiscord #shadowhunterbingo #will eventually be r/j/s but for now it's just jimon! #long post #elle writes a few deadbeat lines

[matthewfairchilds-lil-bitch]

The Truth

I had to write a short (~3800 words) one-shot for Matthew x Cordelia. Story is set a few months after James and Cordelia announce their engagement. Matthew confesses his feelings to her. It was getting very smutty but I toned it down for my own sake. Rated M (lil bit of sexy kissing, nothing crazy).

Matthew was in a particularly foul mood when he arrived at his parabatai’s estate. He trudged up the stone steps and knocked twice loudly. Just before he could lose his patience and barge in himself the door swung open to reveal a sleepy, confused James.

“Math?” he asked, taking in Matthew’s torn and bloodied waistcoat.

He brushed past James into the foyer instead of answering. With a huff of frustration he tore the waistcoat from his arms and tossed it across the room. It was soaked in foul ichor.

“I just received that yesterday,” Matthew complained. “I’d ordered it months ago, custom made.”

“You’re bleeding,” James walked up to take Matthew’s left arm in inspection. 

“Did you not hear me?” Matthew pulled his arm free of James’ grasp. He stalked down the hall towards the library. Matthew threw himself down onto the ornate green and gold rug in front of the fireplace, stretching his sore legs towards the gently crackling fire.

“Yes, yes, your new coat is ruined,” James said as he entered. The door slammed shut behind him, worsening Matthew’s already throbbing headache.

“The embroidered carnations were made of silk,” Matthew’s voice dripped with despair. “Silk from China.”

“I won’t deny that it looked like a lovely coat,” James came to lean against the couch by the fire. 

“It was more than lovely.”

“I’m sure you can have another one made,” James suggested with a shrug.

Matthew rolled his eyes and didn’t look at his entirely too sensical best friend. Of course it hadn’t made sense to go on patrol wearing his newest prized possession. Thomas had pointed that out to him numerous times before they’d even left the Institute.

“If we hadn’t run into those grotesque Mantid demons-”

“Mantid demons?” a soft voice cuts Matthew off from the entry to the library. He turns to see Cordelia walking quickly towards them. Her dark red hair hangs loosely over her shoulders. She ties her ivory robe securely around her waist, concealing her knee-length nightgown from view. Matthew has to look away so she won’t notice the slight blush creeping across his cheeks.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” James can’t seem to meet his fiancé’s eyes when she looks at him. Cordelia looks at Matthew instead, watching him with concern as she stands beside James. “Matthew was on patrol with Thomas. He showed up bloodied and irritated.”

Matthew huffs dismissively. He hates the way it feels to have his parabatai’s fiancé stare at him so intently. He hates the way she looks worried, because it makes him feel good. 

“Are you hurt?” she asks.

“No,” Matthew says at the same time that James says “Yes.”

“Take off your shirt,” Cordelia commands. 

“I am fine,” Matthew doesn’t bother to hide his frustration. 

She crosses her arms over her chest and gives Matthew an impatient look. As always, it was pointless for him to try and argue with her. He doesn’t drop her gaze as he begins to unbutton the cream-colored linen. Cordelia only looks away once Matthew reaches the last button and shrugs the shirt off completely. Her eyes dart to his lower abdomen and she frowns.

Matthew looks down at his bare torso and notices a large, jagged cut. It spans from the top of his left hip bone to just above his navel. The blood around it is mostly dried, but a small amount of fresh blood still seeps from the wound. He’s not surprised he didn’t feel much pain but the sight of it now brings it to his attention. 

“I’ll get a washrag and water,” Cordelia says. Matthew is confused by the tightness he hears in her voice. James sighs after the door shuts behind her.

“Trouble in paradise, Jamie?” Matthew taunts him. It’s not like him to goad his friend, but frustration from tonight and the past few months is finally overwhelming him.

James doesn’t look at him. He stands up from the couch and strides over to the liquor cabinet across the room. Matthew winces when he hears the clink of an empty glass against another.

“I’m afraid my Dai-” James clears his throat. “I’m afraid Cordelia is reluctant to continue our engagement.”

For once, Matthew is shockingly unable to reply. He knew that their engagement was an illusion, a promise for the sake of their societal appearances. Cordelia and James were only to be married for a year before they would divorce and seek true relationships. 

Still, it surprised him to hear that Cordelia would consider ending their charade before it could even benefit them. But he understood her pain. To be so close to someone you loved and know that love would never be returned, he was very familiar with that feeling. 

“Can you blame her?” Matthew wasn’t sure James would understand. His relationship with Grace had barely changed at all during the past few months. Of course they’d kept it all quite hidden, but James could hide nothing from Matthew.

“I know the situation is less than ideal,” James says quietly. He walks back to his previous spot against the couch, this time carrying a glass half filled with dark brown liquor. 

James holds the glass out for Matthew, who only shakes his head. Matthew wants to be mad at his friend for automatically offering him his preferred liquid vice but he knows the blame is only his own. The habit has become entirely too representative of Matthew.

“You know me too well, James,” Matthew looks into the fire. “But I’m afraid the gesture would be against my best interests. I am rather uncharacteristically attempting sobriety.”

James drops his extended arm, placing the glass on the low wooden table behind Matthew. 

“I think that’s excellent, Math,” James says. 

Matthew only grimaces. He’s sure that James is doubtful of his efforts, just as he was. It has been an agonizing two days for Matthew, but he felt a new sense of power within himself every time he denied the drink.

Neither boy is used to this much silence between them, and the longer it drags out the worse it feels. James bends down to sit beside Matthew. He pulls out his stele and taps it against Matthew’s shoulder.

“Ought to have drawn a few Iratzes by now, haven’t I?” James attempts to lighten Matthew’s mood.

“Yes, you are quite the failure this evening,” Matthew says. He leans his head back as James brings the stele to the side of his wound. A familiar gentle burn spreads across his stomach as the rune begins to work.

“I don’t blame her,” James says quietly. Matthew opens one eye to watch his friend. James is careful with the stele but his eyes show that his mind is faraway. 

“It’s difficult for her,” Matthew says. “She cares for you more than you realize, but she sees the way you love Grace. She knows you’ll never love her that way.”

“That’s not true,” James snaps, somewhat harshly.  

“So you don’t love Grace?”

“No- well, I mean yes,” James stammers, lowering his stele to his lap. “But I care for Cordelia.”

James looks almost pained to be saying this, his mouth slightly open in his own confusion. The mask he wore so often seemed to be slipping its way back across his face. Matthew is about to question him further when the library door opens to reveal a slightly flushed Cordelia carrying a sloshing bowl of water.

They both stand up at the sight of her. Matthew uses one hand to keep pressure on his still-healing injury, trying to hide his discomfort.

“Everything is fine,” she tries to reassure their worried expressions. “Christopher is here, he just needs help at the Institute. He said Anna has received word of a questionable downworlder gathering.”

“I’ll head there now,” James starts towards the door and Matthew follows.

“You are staying here, Matthew,” Cordelia holds out a hand to stop him before he can pass her.

“Don’t be absur-”

“You are in no condition to join them,” she cuts him off and wraps her hand around his wrist, pulling him back to the couch. Matthew gives James a disbelieving look, but he only shrugs in response. 

“Please be careful, James,” Cordelia says. She gives him a tight-lipped smile. 

James bows his head slightly. He hesitates at the door, watching Cordelia as if trying to convey something without words. Before he can decide on what to say, Christopher calls out from the front hall. 

“James, we really should be going!” Christopher rarely sounded impatient, but it was clear in his voice now.

James gave Matthew and Cordelia one last uncertain look before dashing out of the library. It was nearly impossible for Matthew to just sit there and not follow his friends into potential danger. Cordelia still gripped his wrist as if she knew what would happen if she were to let go.

“They will be alright,” she says quietly, almost to herself. Cordelia lets go of his wrist and Matthew remains still. 

“Why didn’t you go with them?” Matthew asks.

“Someone had to stay behind and clean you up,” she offers him a small half-smile to show she’s teasing.

“I’m perfectly capable of doing this myself, regardless of how helpless you believe me to be,” Matthew smiles down at her.

“I never said you were helpless,” Cordelia says, pulling out a washrag from her robe’s pocket. “You did kill a Mantid demon tonight. I would hardly consider that helpless.”

“Thomas killed more than I did,” Matthew admits. He’s embarrassed to be flattered by her words, however small of a compliment they may be. 

“Well you were wounded,” Cordelia squeezes the excess water from the rag after dipping it into the bowl. “And you haven’t complained at all. That must count for something.”

The damp rag is cold against Matthew’s warm skin. Cordelia gently wipes away the dried blood, being careful not to push too firmly against the cut. Matthew watches her while she concentrates. He notices the way her eyes narrow slightly as she studies his injury, notices the way her lips scrunch up to one side. 

When a lock of her hair falls into her face Matthew is startled to see his own hand coming up to tuck it back behind her ear. Cordelia doesn’t flinch away from his touch, but her hand stills against his stomach.

“Your handiwork is as skilled as ever,” Matthew drops his hand to his side. “Thank you for tending to me.”

“Of course, Matthew,” Cordelia drops the rag into the bowl and smiles at him for a moment. 

“If only you could repair my ruined waistcoat,” he laughs softly. “You would have loved the silk flowers.”

“I’m sure it was very beautiful,” she sounds somewhat regretful. Matthew wonders if it’s just on his behalf, as she’s very familiar with his admiration for intricate clothing.

“You called me beautiful once,” Matthew almost whispers. “The first night we met.”

Cordelia looks caught off guard at the memory. Matthew has no idea why he is bringing it up and has no idea why he won’t just sit there quietly.

“It was bold of me to say,” she blushes. “But it was the truth.”

“The truth,” Matthew muses. “It can be so cruel, can it not?”

Cordelia’s eyes flit back and forth between his, in search of something. Matthew has grown used to this look from her. One of the many things he has come to appreciate about Cordelia is that she isn’t afraid of figuring people out. She’s inquisitive and persistent, especially when it comes to her friends.

Matthew realizes they’ve been regarding each other in silence for a few minutes. She seems to notice the same thing, and she clears her throat when her gaze drops to her lap.

“You should rest,” Cordelia says. She stands and reaches for the dark wool blanket across the back of the couch. Matthew doesn’t move as she throws it across his shoulders.

“Good night, Matthew,” she offers a small smile before turning away from him. She’s halfway to the door when Matthew stands up, causing the blanket to flutter to the floor.

“Would you like the truth, as well?” his voice is too loud in the quiet of the room.

Cordelia halts but does not turn to face him. Matthew notices the way her shoulders tense under her pale robe.

“The truth is I am a horrible fool,” he laughs bitterly at himself. “I have done something so despicable that I can hardly accept that it is true.”

“Matthew, if you’re referring to the secret you confided in me-” Cordelia whirls around.

“No,” he shakes his head at her. “You’ve known that truth about me for weeks now, this is something else.”

“Then what is it?” Cordelia manages to sound both kind and demanding at the same time. “What could be so awful?”

Matthew’s heartbeat is racing now. He cannot imagine revealing this truth to her, not when she has already uncovered so much of his dark past. Matthew wants to evaporate into the air rather than face her pitying reaction, but he’s come this far and the momentum of his pulse pushes him to keep going.

“What’s awful is that I have fallen for a woman who deserves so much better than what I can give her,” his voice is empty of every emotion but anger. “The truth is she deserves so much better than what any man has ever offered her.”

Cordelia stares at him, almost hypnotically. She’s utterly still and Matthew wonders if she’s stopped breathing. He takes a step towards her.

“And the truth is I am betraying her in telling her this,” the space between them is disappearing with each shaky step he takes. “Because it is wholly unfair of me to burden her with this truth.”

“Matthew,” Cordelia breathes. Her hands are trembling slightly at her sides. Matthew has never seen Cordelia tremble, not in the face of any danger they have ever known.

“Cordelia, the truth is…I am in love with you,” Matthew feels as if all the air has left his lungs at this declaration. 

Her mouth falls open as she takes in a sharp breath. He’s close enough now to notice the soft pink blush spreading across her warm, dark cheeks. Cordelia makes no move to stop him as he reaches for one of her hands. 

“I realize it is cruel for me to admit this,” he says, staring at their intertwined hands. “You care for James. I am sorry for-”

“No,” her voice is shaky when she cuts off his apology. “Don’t.”

Matthew can’t look at her when he drops her hand, can’t stand there in front of her while the last shred of his heart accepts what he already truly knew. 

“I’ll go,” Matthew whispers. “I am truly sorry. Goodbye, Cordelia.”

He has taken three long strides to the door when Cordelia’s hand captures one of his. Matthew is yanked backwards and spun around to face her.

“No, Matthew,” she sounds firm and unhappy. “Do not apologize to me, not for that.”

“Why not?”

“Because as much as you might hate the idea of loving me, I do not,” the words rush out of her, but she sounds sure.

“Why? How could you not-”

Cordelia’s hand shoots up to cover his mouth. Matthew furrows his brows, desperate for her to put his restless mind at ease.

“You truly don’t understand, do you Matthew?” Cordelia asks in awe. He can only shake his head, and she drops her hand. It comes to rest against his bare chest and Matthew is briefly electrified by her touch.

“Have you really not noticed how difficult it is for me to look you in the eyes?” her voice is breathless. “Have you not caught me watching you from a distance on more than one occasion?”

The rapid beat of Matthew’s heart should concern him. His hand is clammy in Cordelia’s but he doesn’t dare let go of her.

“What are you saying, Cordelia?” Matthew has to know.

“It should be quite obvious,” her eyes drop to focus on his rosy pink lips. “I’m saying that I am in love with you, too.”

A ragged breath escapes him, and he brings his free hand up to cup her face. She leans into his palm and smiles at him the way Matthew only ever dreamed that she would. His thumb strokes her cheek while he stares at her incredulously.

“Would it be unfair of me to be bold once again?” Cordelia asks.

“I would hardly expect you to be anything else,” he states simply. His voice is quiet from the shock of her words. Her eyes flutter shut for a second and her tongue juts out enough to wet her lips. 

“Then I would like for you to kiss me now,” Matthew almost couldn’t hear her over the blood pounding in his ears. 

Her words finally register with him and he can’t contain his grin. His hand slips behind her head to tangle in her hair and Cordelia’s breath catches in her throat. It’s all the motivation he needs to push his lips against hers.

Matthew feels as if he’s lept off the side of Blackfriars Bridge. The only thing anchoring him to this world is his grip on the back of Cordelia’s neck. Their lips are unbearably gentle against each other’s, as if the gravity of the moment restrains them.

Cordelia moves one hand to grasp Matthew’s hip and pull him against her. A quiet moan falls off his lips and he pulls back enough to take in her reaction. Her eyes are wild and bright as she studies him too.

“Kiss me again,” Cordelia’s voice is only slightly shaky. Matthew is still too stunned by the fact that he has kissed her at all to move. 

Cordelia lets out an impatient huff before she wraps both arms around his neck, kissing him harder than before and without any hesitation. Her vigor sparks an immediate response in Matthew.

His arms lock around her waist to erase the remaining distance between them. Cordelia’s hand twines through Matthew’s messy blonde hair and she tugs the strands lightly. It is a maddening sensation that causes him to gasp with pleasure. 

His reaction makes Cordelia smile proudly against his mouth. Matthew uses the moment to run his tongue against her bottom lip, and her hand tightens in his hair. 

“Cordelia,” Matthew’s voice is rough and pleading. 

He needs to hold her tighter, to feel her soft and toned frame entirely against his. Matthew’s hands move to grasp the back of her thighs. He lifts her up and her legs wrap around his waist gracefully. 

Their kiss is unbroken as Matthew leads them to the nearest couch. 

Cordelia’s tongue strokes against Matthew’s as her hands roam his scarred shoulders, his muscled chest. Her touch somehow soothes his frantic thoughts and ignites them simultaneously. 

Matthew pulls Cordelia down to straddle his lap when they reach the couch. He holds her hips with enough pressure to leave bruises if he’s not careful. Cordelia pulls back and gazes down at him, her long hair burning a beautiful shade of garnet in the light from the fire. 

Her neck is exposed to him alluringly, begging him to taste it. When he bites it softly Cordelia moans and grips the tops of his arms. The sound is fuel to his fire, encouraging him to suck the skin at the base of her throat and lick away the pain. 

“I will need several Iratzes now, thanks to you,” she says. Matthew can hear the smile on her face.

“It would be my pleasure to assist,” his breath fans across her neck and he’s pleased by the way she shivers at the heat.

Matthew kisses his way up Cordelia’s throat, across her jawline, under the shell of her ear. Her skin is warming rapidly under his touch and her quiet panting increases when his hands roam the expanse of her exposed thighs. 

“I have waited so long for you to do this,” Cordelia admits, sounding relieved.

“Not as long as I,” his hand moves to the small of her back, shifting her against him desperately. “I have dreamt of you since the night I watched you dance at the Hell Ruelle.”

Cordelia lets out an airy laugh at the memory. The movement shakes her shoulders slightly, causing her robe to slip down her arms. Her dark skin glows in the firelight under her pale blue nightgown. 

Matthew’s lips trail down across her collarbone, leaving a path of gentle bitemarks and wet kisses. He cannot comprehend the reality of this glorious moment. The feeling of her palms against his neck is a fever dream, the weight of her body on top of his is a heavenly hallucination. 

When Matthew’s mouth reaches the skin above her left breast he hesitates. Cordelia senses his apprehension, and makes it disappear when she gently pushes his head towards her. He places a tender kiss there before his teeth sink in faintly. 

“Matthew,” she whimpers. His name tumbling from her lips causes him to bite down harder, and she arches against him. 

Her grip on his shoulders would be painful if he wasn’t already on fire. His tongue darts out to soothe the bite, a light red mark already blossoming there. 

Matthew pulls back to admire her. Cordelia’s eyes are lidded, the corners of her swollen lips turned up softly in a sated smile. He reaches up to twine a finger around her brilliant red hair. She brings a hand up to cup his chin. 

“This feels so natural,” she sounded amazed. “It’s as if this could be our hundredth kiss.”

Matthew chuckles and presses his lips against her jaw. He’s thrilled to hear her say it so freely and so easily. 

“Well I never let myself believe I’d be able to kiss you at all,” Matthew says. “But now I’ll dream of our hundredth, our thousandth, and every kiss after that.”

Cordelia laughs and drops her forehead to his before saying, “Don’t bother dreaming of our second.”

Her soft lips slant against his and he cups the back of her neck to hold her there. Matthew always took pride in his imagination, but this lust erupting between them was far greater than any fantasy he had ever envisioned. 

They burn together in newfound pleasure and acceptance. The fire behind the grate pales in comparison to their fevered discovery of each other. 

Their hands roam across each other, caressing every surface they can access. Every kiss sparks an ember within his heart. Every brush of her hand against his skin fills his hollowness with a molten bliss. Matthew lets Cordelia’s presence incinerate the wall of ice he built over time around his soul.

He had forgotten what it felt like, warmth. 

#matthew fairchild #cordelia carstairs #matthew x cordelia #cassie clare #the last hours #chain of gold #chain of iron #tlh fanfic #fairstairs #sappy #don't judge me I also ship Jordelia #my first fanfic #please be nice

[theredraccoon]

A Desperate Proposal - Ch 1

“Have you gone absolutely insane, Alec? What the fuck is this shit?”

Jace had barely even entered Alec’s office before he started yelling, waving the crumpled, fine linen paper bearing the official Seal of the Clave around wildly. 

Alec sighed and leaned back in his chair, lifting his hands to scrub at his face. Sounding absolutely exhausted, he said, “Ah. Jace. I see you got the memo.” 

Jace could feel himself going redder. “Yes, Alec, let’s start with the fact that I found out that I was getting married in a fucking memo! Are you shitting me right now? A memo? What, were you too scared to tell me in person? You had to write it on fucking Clave stationary? This is a joke, right? It’s got to be a joke. What the fuck is going on?” 

The room was quiet for a solid minute, apart from Jace’s furious panting breaths. When Alec still didn’t say anything he lowered the (goddamn) memo and finally looked at his parabatai. Alec’s head was resting on the back of the ornate chair, the very same one that six Heads of the New York Institute had sat in over the course of the last two hundred years, and he was staring blankly into space. There were deep purple bruises under his eyes and permanent frown lines had been carved into his brow and mouth that had slipped Jace’s notice until now. 

Jace’s anger suddenly cooled, and he dropped heavily into the chair in front of Alec’s monstrous desk. Which he now saw was practically buried under paperwork. He said quietly, “Alec, what the hell is going on?”

Alec still didn’t meet his eyes. “How many Shadowhunters have we lost in the last year, Jace? Do you know?”

Jace shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to be reminded of the funerals that somehow had become a normal part of their lives. “I dunno, maybe ten? Why? Demons get lucky sometimes and we die. What does that have to do with me getting married?” Although now Jace was trying to think about when that had happened, when it had become normal to have this many funerals. It hadn’t been like that when they were younger. Right? He was pulled from his thoughts when Alec spoke again. 

“Twelve. We’ve lost twelve Shadowhunters in New York alone, just last year. That’s one a month. And some of the other Institutes have been hit worse. We’re dying, Jace, at an alarming rate.” There was a depth of grief in Alec’s voice that Jace couldn’t understand, more than just the normal loss that all Shadowhunters felt when one of their own died, and he found himself pressing a hand over his parabatai rune, feeling an echo of it deep inside him. 

Alec gestured at the mess on the table in front of him. “Do you know what I’ve been doing the last few weeks? I’ve been combing the archives to see if something like this has happened in the past. I’ve asked Magnus to search his Downworld scrolls to check and the answer is no. The Shadowhunter population has stayed almost completely stable for centuries, regardless of wars or anything else. Something new is going on. Something is killing us off, bit by bit.”

Jace was dumbfounded. “And your solution is to fucking marry me off? To a vampire? In what world does that make any kind of fucking sense?”

“You’re not the only one getting married, Jace. The Clave has ordered a series of marriages to create an alliance with the more prominent groups of Downworlders— warlocks, Seelies, werewolves, and vampires. Izzy, mom, and I are all getting married to Downworlders the same day you are.”

Jace’s head was pounding. “What? The Clave wants all of us to marry Downworlders? Who are you marrying? Who is Izzy marrying? Why are any of us getting married at all?” His voice was getting slightly hysterical but Jace didn’t think he could be blamed for it. Nothing made sense. 

“We are dying, Jace. Something is going on and we need other people to help us stop it and the Downworld is our best option. At this rate, we can’t keep the demon world in check and figure out why we keep getting killed with the number of Shadowhunters we have. We need allies. We need more people on patrol. We need the knowledge the Downworld has that we’ve been ignoring for centuries because of our own stupid prejudices.

“So Izzy’s going to marry a Seelie, I’m marrying a warlock, Mom is marrying a werewolf, and you’re marrying a vampire. This is happening.” Alec’s words were hard and firm.

Jace was reeling and he couldn’t figure out what to comment on first. He fell back to repeating his earlier question. “Who are you marrying? Who is Izzy marrying?” Jace’s eyes widened as he realized that he’d missed something in Alec’s deluge of information. “Wait, who is Maryse marrying?” 

“Izzy is marrying Meliorn, he’s one of the Seelie Queen’s knights.” Jace saw Alec take a deep breath. “I’m marrying Magnus,” Jace started to puff up and Alec spoke louder, “the High Warlock of Brooklyn and the inventor of the Portal. Mom is marrying Luke, the Beta of the New York pack.” 

The knot of rage in Jace's throat was now so large he could barely speak. "So you get to marry your boyfriend and Izzy gets to marry someone she knows and likes and has been sleeping with for six months already, Mom gets to marry her ‘one that got away,’ and I get to marry a stranger. A random-ass vampire. Do I have it right, Alec? Anything I’m missing?”

He watched Alec swallow. Jace was in complete disbelief. “I am missing something, aren’t I. Holy shit, Alec, what else? Is there something I should know about this vampire? Do you even know her name? Anything about her?” Jace could hear himself shouting but didn’t care. 

Alec seemed to shrink down into himself, shoulders curling in for a long moment before he stood up and came around the desk to stand in front of Jace. He straightened into an open battle stance, centered on the balls of his feet and braced for anything. Jace stared up at him. There was an ugly sense of foreboding in his gut. 

Alec's voice was even, no inflection whatsoever, and he was looking past Jace’s head to the far wall. "There tend to be more male vampires than female. I told the Clan that you were bisexual. I don't know if you’re marrying a man or a woman." 

Jace's fist had broken Alec's nose before he had even registered that he'd moved. Alec's head snapped back and blood started to pour out immediately. He’d made no move to defend himself, just rolled with the punch, hands hanging loose at his sides. 

Jace could hear the breath sawing in and out of his lungs and his hand was throbbing in time with the heartbeat thundering in his ears. He looked at his parabatai and saw the acknowledgement of betrayal in Alec’s eyes. And regret and resignation and about five other emotions Jace couldn't identify. 

Alec stood there, unmoving, and the blood slowly dripped down his face as they stared at each other. 

Jace's voice was a croak when he finally spoke. "Is it really that bad?" 

Alec's voice was nasal and choked and he had to clear his throat several times before he could speak. "Magnus and I estimate that all the Shadowhunters in the world will be dead in three years if we don't do something. Maybe less." 

Jace staggered back, moving far away from Alec until he hit the wall of the office.  He slid down until his ass was on the floor. He buried his fingers in his hair and blindly looked at the carpet in front of him. 

He heard Alec sigh and move back around his desk, rattling drawers until he found a handkerchief. Jace watched as Alec put it over his face and set his nose with a crack and a grunt. He made a cursory wipe at the blood and then dropped the handkerchief in the trash bin.

Jace let his head fall back against the wall as Alec walked over and settled down on the floor next to him. They breathed for a few more minutes before Jace spoke. "How could this happen? How come no one has noticed that we're all fucking dying? What the hell, Alec.”

Alec sighed and Jace watched as Alec let his long legs stretch out on the floor before glancing over at him. His voice was tired. “Magnus thinks that there’s some powerful magic going on, some kind of worldwide glamour that makes us, just, look away? Just accept what’s happening and not think about it. Like you did. By the Angel, Jace, you thought that ten Shadowhunters had died last year and you said it like it was no big deal! And in reality it was twelve. One every damn month. There are only a few hundred Shadowhunters at the Institute in the first place. And it’s getting worse. Only six died two years ago.” He huffed out a breath. “Only six.” 

Jace shifted, uncomfortable with the idea that he was under some sort of glamour and didn’t know it. “So how did you notice it?”

Alec’s laugh startled them both. He cut an amused glance at Jace and said, “Magnus says it’s because I’m a workaholic with a giant hard-on for paperwork.” Jace grinned and Alec smirked back before sobering. “Although he’s not really wrong. Do you know how much funerals cost, Jace? It’s a lot. And suddenly the Institute was slowly going broke and I couldn’t figure out why. And then once I started connecting the dots, it was like a veil lifted and everything was clear. Ask Magnus; I freaked out on him pretty badly when I figured it out. He started investigating too and then we reached out to the other Institutes to see if it was just us. It wasn’t. 

“They didn’t actually believe us, at first, either. We had to ask for their funeral records. Those were harder to ignore. We got the Clave involved a few weeks ago and everything has happened pretty fast since then. Even those stubborn asses could see the problem. Magnus and I were able to convince them that with the help of the Downworld, we might have a chance to figure out what the fuck is happening and hopefully not all die before we can. This was the best solution we could come up with to make alliances quickly that couldn’t easily be broken. There will be an amendment to the Accords to include our marriages right now, and then we will rewrite them completely in the future, after this is over. That’s the deal. If this works at all.”

The room went quiet again after Alec finished. They sat there. Jace listened to the clock on Alec’s desk tick softly. Alec didn’t say anything. When Jace glanced over at him, Alec’s head was leaning against the wall and his eyes were closed. He looked almost asleep. Jace was startled to realize that he didn’t remember the last time he and Alec had trained together. Or done much of anything together in the last few weeks. Jace’d been so busy with patrols. And apparently funerals.

Jace closed his eyes. “Okay,” he whispered, “okay, I guess I’ll marry a vampire.” 

There was a touch on his arm. Jace looked down as Alec wrapped a cool, dry hand around his wrist. “Entreat me not to leave thee, or return from following after thee. For whither thou goest, I will go, And where thou lodgest, I will lodge.” Jace heard the words Alec spoke softly reverberate in his head and his parabatai rune burned. 

“Jace, I am sorry. I know you have… complicated feelings towards being bi. I hope it’s not even an issue and that you’ll end up with a woman that you can get along with. I just knew that the Clan might not go for it unless I offered them the option. You know they have weird hierarchies. I couldn’t take the chance. We’re dying and I can’t stop it.” Alec’s hand abruptly tightened on Jace’s arm, becoming a bruising vice grip. “But Jace, you are still my parabatai, your soul is in my soul, and I will be with you through this, every step of the way. And I’ll find a way out of it if we need to. I promise you.” Alec’s voice was fierce before fading away into silence again.

Jace was suddenly exhausted, the maelstrom of emotions coursing through him finally easing, leaving behind bone-deep weariness and a headache behind his temples. Alec’s hand rested on his arm for another minute before dropping away. He looked over and Alec’s eyes were closed again. He wondered when Alec had last slept. The leftover blood still on his face had turned dark brown and was crusted in little flakes around his nostrils. The bruising would be spectacular if it wasn’t healed soon.

“Are you going to use an iratze on your nose.” Jace’s voice was flat, more of a statement than a question.

Alec’s eyes opened a slit and peered over at him. “No,” he said, shortly. His eyes closed again.

Jace felt a small, vicious curl of satisfaction in his gut. He relaxed against the wall and closed his own eyes. “Shit, man. This sucks.”

Alec let out a breathy chuckle. “Yes, Jace. This fucking sucks.” 

#chapter 1 #shminibang #jimon #a desperate proposal #i suck at tumblr

[moonlight-breeze-44]

Jalec Secret Santa for @finditagain24

Hi, Lau! You mentioned that you liked angst with a happy ending, canon development, pining, and longing so I thought you might like this little thing <3 I hope that you do, and happy holidays!!

watch the sunset in your eyes

Read on AO3

When Jace first came to the New York Institute to live with the Lightwoods, Alec regarded him as another Isabelle; a charge, someone for him to protect, despite the fact that Jace proved on his very first day that he was more than capable of protecting himself.

It didn’t matter to Alec; Jace reminded him of himself, in ways that made Alec want to rip off the cocky mask Jace always wore and meet the broken boy underneath. Jace was something, a new kind of challenge that Alec had never met before - utterly broken and flawed, but in that kind of beautiful way that Alec liked to lose himself in.

Years passed, and before long, Jace & Alec were in battle together, fighting side-by-side. They worked so well together, so steadily, that Alec thought he might have known even before Maryse cornered him in his room and told him the political benefits of having a parabatai like Jace Wayland. The truth was, Alec and Jace were already connected; the parabatai bond would only symbolize what was already there.

But Alec would’ve had to be blind not to notice the way that Jace’s eyes shone in the light, or how he managed to look a little like a lost puppy when his straw-blonde hair fell over his eyes, or the fact that his smirk after he’d killed a demon made Alec’s heart skip a beat. Alec noticed, and he knew - of course he knew.

Alec also knew that Jace didn’t share his feelings or his thoughts about the possibility of being bonded; he was all too happy, excited, and practically giddy at the idea of having a parabatai. Alec knew there was no way Jace was having the same internal crisis that he was, and he hoped to the Angel that the other boy wasn’t aware of it.

That fear of awareness was another thing that scared Alec - being parabatai would mean that he and Jace would be deeply connected on an emotional and physical level, and Alec wasn’t sure he wanted to know what that meant. Being gay wasn’t heard of in the Clave, and those that were guarded that secret so fiercely that it was rare for anyone to ever find out. Alec knew enough about Clave politics by the time he was thirteen to be afraid of Jace’s reaction, if he were to find out Alec’s secret.

Alec laid in his bed well after midnight that first day, when it was first announced that he and Jace would make a good parabatai pair, his hands clenched together tightly. He couldn’t sleep. It was starting to seem like he could never sleep these days. Jace slept on the other side of him, his blonde hair a golden halo on the pillow. He looked so peaceful, so unlike the brash warrior Alec knew in daylight. Alec swallowed hard. He looked like an angel. He looked like an angel, and Alec felt like a demon.

~ ~ ~

In the end, Alec knew he had to become parabatai with Jace, regardless of his own feelings. His mother would disown him if he backed out of the ceremony, and he couldn’t bear to disappoint Jace when he looked at Alec like he’d hung the stars in the sky.

Alec felt like he was going to throw up when they stepped into the ring of fire, but the look that Izzy gave him, so complicated and supportive and full of love, made him grit his teeth and lift his chin to meet his future parabatai’s eyes. He could do this. For his mother, for Izzy, for Jace. He could do this.

When Jace grabbed Alec’s arm, it sent a wave of heat through Alec and made his head swim. He swallowed hard. He had to do this.

The words, when they left Alec’s lips, felt oddly right, oddly comforting in some way. He’d thought they would taste bitter, like acid, but they fell from Alec’s mouth with the ease of his baby sister’s name.

“For whither thou goest, I will go. And where thou lodgest, I will lodge.”

Jace’s voice soothed the frayed edges of Alec’s nerves, and he found himself wishing the fire wasn’t quite so bright. He wanted to be able to look at Jace, really look, memorise the lines of his cheekbones and the soft suns in his eyes.

“The Angel do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.”

The overlap of their voices made Alec want to cry, made him want to reach for Jace and never let go, but instead, he reached forward and drew the parabatai rune on Jace. When he felt the matching burn on his own hip, he had to bite his lip so hard that it drew blood to stave off the tears that threatened to fall.

There was no going back now.

~ ~ ~

The main difference between Jace and Alec, in behaviour and in personality, was that Jace wasn’t afraid to take what he wanted. In that respect, he was practically fearless. And Alec knew that Jace had fears, but they were things whispered under the cover of darkness to him and him alone. Jace’s fears were rooted deep in his childhood, and they would have taken years for anyone else to uncover. Alec knew he was the only person to ever hear them, maybe the only person who ever would.

When it came to romance, however, Jace was fearless. He was so fearless that it took Alec’s breath away and made his heart stutter a step.

Alec wasn’t blind, but when it came to Jace, he tended to view the world through glasses tinted with self-loathing. He could feel Jace’s desire sometimes, knew that the other boy wanted something, but he had never considered that it might be him that Jace wanted.

They had been parabatai for nearly a year before Jace grew tired of waiting for Alec to realise what was happening, and made his intentions very, very clear.

“What is it?” Alec asked, entering the training room and letting the door fall shut behind him. “You said you needed to talk to me?”

Jace grinned, sharp like a cat that knew it was getting what it wanted. “Well, maybe talking wasn’t the best word to use.”

With that, Jace strode forward and slammed his lips to Alec’s, punching the breath from his parabatai and sending his heart into a spiral Alec knew it would never recover from.

Jace’s lips on his, in fact, were making Alec think he would never recover from Jace, period.

He’d dreamed about this moment for ages, and yet, the real thing blew past even the most insane of Alec’s fantasies. The feeling of Jace’s lips on his, of Jace surrounding him and pressing close to him and guarding him like he was something to be loved, something to be protected, made Alec dizzy. His hands found Jace’s hair, tugging at the golden blonde strands like they could somehow meld their bodies even closer together. Alec sighed against Jace’s lips and felt Jace respond in kind.

Halfway through their kiss, it hit Alec that he was kissing Jace, and he felt his knees begin to buckle. Jace, almost as if he’d expected this, backed Alec up against a wall and wrapped his arms around his parabatai’s waist, keeping him upright. Alec felt tears pool in his eyes. It shouldn’t be like this. He should be the one taking care of Jace, not the other way around. But he couldn’t deny that, after so long of taking care of other people, it felt good to be taken care of.

When finally they pulled apart, gasping for air, Jace’s eyes were bright, and the grin on his face was something softer than Alec was used to seeing on him. He smiled, too, almost shyly. This was new territory for him. He’d wanted, he’d dreamed, he’d even wished, but he had never thought that Jace would love him back, that Jace would feel for him what Alec felt for Jace. It almost felt like a miracle, like a gift from Raziel even though Alec knew he didn’t deserve it.

“Stop,” Jace whispered, pressing his forehead to Alec’s. “I can hear you thinking. Stop it.”

“Sorry,” Alec muttered, his cheeks flaming pink.

Jace shook his head, smiling a little. “You don’t have to apologise. I just don’t want you to overthink this like you do everything else.”

Alec opened his mouth to defend himself, but Jace raised an eyebrow at him, and the unspoken ‘You know I’m right’ was enough to make him close it again.

“You know this is forbidden, right?” Alec mumbled, avoiding Jace’s eyes. “We’re not, we’re not...we’re never supposed to do this. It’s against the Law.”

“Rules are meant to be broken,” Jace replied, grinning, and Alec sucked in a deep breath, frustrated. Jace could act like this meant nothing all he wanted, but Alec knew what they were risking.

“If anyone finds out - ”

“They won’t,” Jace reassured him, and his voice had lost some of its flippantness. Alec was still unconvinced. The Clave would consider them traitors if they were found to be in a relationship with each other. They could be de-runed. They could lose everything that they had ever loved, and all for what might be a quick fuck to Jace.

“You’re not,” Jace growled, and Alec flushed. He hadn’t realised he had spoken out loud.

“Alec, look at me,” Jace demanded, and Alec lifted his eyes to meet the other boy’s. As always, the golden orbs made his breath catch in his throat, but this time, there was more. It was like peering into a looking glass - the same feelings that Alec harbored for Jace were reflected back in Jace’s eyes.

“You’re my parabatai,” Jace said, and his fingers found Alec’s, tangling together in the space between their bodies. “You could never be just, just a fling to me, Alec.” There were tears in his eyes now, and he looked so hurt that Alec wanted to take all of his words and stuff them back into his mouth until he could erase that look from Jace’s face. “You mean so much more than that.”

“I feel the same way,” Alec said, exhaling with relief. “I just...are you sure you want to do this?”

Jace ducked his head and pressed another kiss to Alec’s lips. “I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life.”

The tears from before spilled over, and Alec bit his lip, trying to stem the flow. Jace made a small, wounded sound in the back of his throat and pressed a soft kiss to Alec’s temple, wiping away his tears with the pad of his thumb. Alec choked on a sob, sagging forward into Jace’s arms. Jace caught him easily, holding his parabatai close. Alec couldn’t be sure, but he thought Jace was crying, too.

When Alec went to bed that night, it was with the scent of Jace on his clothes, the taste of Jace on his lips, and a smile on his face - for the first time in a very, very long time.

#jalecsecretsanta #shadowhunters #jalec #my writing #my fanfiction #jalecsecretsanta2020 #alec lightwood #jace wayland